“My teeth may be ugly,” says my lord, with a savage grin; “but they can bite, as this friend of yours will find to his cost when once I track him down—as I shall do.”
“Poor Kit!” cried Mrs. Moll, with a mocking laugh.
“And as to my attentions to you,” said the other, “you may count them for what you like, only don’t include any inclination of mine in the bill. I paid them because it suited me, and not because you did—for anything but a catspaw. And now that I know your true character, why, you may take yourself off for any attraction I find in you, and the sooner the better for all parties concerned. I do not consider you a fit companion for my lady.”
“That’s plain,” said Moll, a little cowed in spite of herself.
“I wish to make it so,” answered his lordship frigidly. “For what purpose my lady invited you here I know not, nor in what degree that purpose tallied with your command of a confederate, the hired instrument, as I take it, of a more exalted infamy. It is enough that you have used your position here to consolidate the discord and misunderstanding you found already unhappily existing——”
“And what have you done, I should like to know?” cried Mrs. Moll.
“And with an object,” went on the gentleman, not deigning to answer her, “which is only perfectly apparent to me at a late hour. But that recognition, now it has come, imposes a duty on me, and on you the perhaps unwelcome realization that I am the master of this house. I neither ask nor expect you to betray to me this creature of yours and of my lord Duke: I shall identify him in good time, and then he will not have reason to congratulate himself on his amiable participation in your designs. But, as to yourself, I have merely to intimate that I shall esteem it a favour, and to avoid unpleasantness, if you will put an early period to your visit here.”
He bowed with such an immense and killing stateliness, that the young lady was quite overawed, and for the moment had not a word to answer; and so, walking deliberately, with his head high, he left the room.
Mrs. Davis sat for some minutes after he was gone, her face a lively play of emotions.
“Why, deuce take it!” she thought, her lids wide, “if he doesn’t believe as I’ve used Kit for go-between with Madam and the Duke creature. Mussey-me!”