“Indeed?” she said. “And now I protest my wit is at least equal to hers in foresight. But I applaud your determination to settle down in life at whatever price.”
She rippled out a spirited little bravura as she turned to some needlework that lay on the table. The necessity of, at the present crisis, conducting all the comedies of life by candle-light threw a curiously theatrical glamour over the scene.
“I hope for Lady Linne’s sake,” said Miss Royston, as she patted her work approvingly, “that a quick end may be put to this very unpleasant predicament. You will be married, of course, the moment you are a free agent again. Perhaps they have a recreant parson amongst our friends at the lodge. They will take to thieving sometimes, I am told. Is not this a pretty stitch? Can Mrs. Pollack thread a needle? She will have had a sampler, I warrant, in the parlour, with a full pot foaming white wool for remarque. And I vow, sir, you have never yet asked how it was my lord Dunlone came by his hurt.”
“I have not,” said the bewildered baronet. “You said it was but a flesh one, and I confess I attached little importance to it.”
“It was received in your service, sir; or, at least, under your roof. You must not think a fine independence releases you from the bonds of courtesy to those who stoop to favour you. ’Twas a ruffian fired at one of your grooms as the man went to close a shutter, and the ball wounded my lord as he stood behind. Perhaps it was not much; but blue blood is a vintage we hold a little higher than small beer.”
She turned round with quite a radiant smile.
“Would you mind doing something?” she said. “We are really a trifle bored, you know, with this tame inactivity.”
CHAPTER XLIX.
Now, before Mr. Tuke was called upon to reap the full embarrassment arising from that impulsive confession of his to Miss Royston, events came to so crowd themselves upon the little stage of his history as that he was spared what might have been otherwise a very complicated situation. For, indeed, he had not thought in what matter Betty Pollack, unchaperoned and living, so to speak, under his protection, was to find her due of respect from his servants and of consideration from his guests.
In this latter question, however, when he came to face it, he was to suffer relief of his apprehensions in a treatment that was, nevertheless, a little galling; for, whether from offended dignity, or from any policy of indifference, Miss Royston made no allusion to the subject before others, and, indeed, to all appearance, gave herself no least concern about it. Still, Betty’s honour being his, and his desire great that she should be placed by no private selfishness in a false position, he was determined at the first convenient opportunity to proclaim her his betrothed.