“How sweetly friendly!”
“Hush! ‘It is with considerable reluctance that I have consented, at the request of many of your leading supporters in the Division, to address you on a subject of great delicacy and importance—’”
“Mysterious creature!”
“‘I refer to the question of your marriage—’”
“This is most interesting!”
Hammond frowned sternly at the fair interrupter.
“Wait! ‘Some time ago it was generally rumored in the constituency that you were likely to lead to the altar Lady Victoria Hildegonde Jane Beauchamp-Mauleverer, only daughter of the most noble the Marquis of Severn, K.G.—’”
“He must have looked me up in Whitaker’s ‘Titled Persons.’”
“‘And the news gave us the greatest satisfaction, as it was felt that by so doing you would greatly strengthen your social prestige, and thereby deprive the Liberals of their advantage in having secured a baronet as their candidate—’”
“He quite crushes you there.”