The last sentence he cried out still more emphatically than the rest, and then repeated it with his eye on Kitty's suddenly flushed cheek, almost in a whisper and with a quiver of strong emotion.
The astounded Mistress Kitty rose from her deep curtesy with a swelling heart.
"The dear lad," she said to herself. "The dear, innocent chivalrous lad!"
There was almost a dimness in her brilliant black eye. Her emotion was of a kind she had never known before: it was almost maternal.
Under stress of sudden genuine emotion, the wit of intrigue in the cleverest woman falls in abeyance. Mistress Bellairs found no word out of the new situation.
Lady Maria's deafness had increased to an alarming extent.
"Gratified, I'm sure," she mumbled, stuck out her dry hand and withdrew it before Mistress Bellairs had time to touch it.
"My future wife," bawled the budding peer, in his aged relative's ear.
It was curious to note how old Lady Maria seemed suddenly to have become. Huddled in herself she nodded vacantly at her nephew.
"Thank ye for asking, child," said she, "but the waters try me a good deal."