“What are you told, Sir Walter?”
“There can, I think, be no doubt that you have—in point of fact, paid attention to my daughter.” Sir Walter was a gentleman, and felt that the task imposed upon him grated against his better feelings.
“If you mean that I have taken steps to win her affections, you have been wrongly informed.”
“That’s what I do mean. Were you not received just now at Brook Park as,—as paying attention to her?”
“I hope not.”
“You hope not, Major Rossiter?”
“I hope no such mistake was made. It certainly was not made by me. I felt myself much flattered by being received at your house. I wrote the other day a line or two to Lady Wanless and thought I had explained all this.”
Sir Walter opened his eyes when he heard, for the first time, of the letter, but was sharp enough not to exhibit his ignorance at the moment. “I don’t know about explaining,” he said. “There are some things which can’t be so very well explained. My wife assures me that that poor girl has been deceived,—cruelly deceived. Now I put it to you, Major Rossiter, what ought you as a gentleman to do?”
“Really, Sir Walter, you are not entitled to ask me any such question.”
“Not on behalf of my own child?”