"Who?" asked Collins, following his gaze. "Oh, the Rush ford girls. I suppose it will be polite to show our gratitude. I think we owe them a vote of thinks, don't you?"
"I certainly do," agreed Vernon, straightening himself in his chair with a vigour which had nothing of the invalid about it. "Will you introduce me?"
"If I can snare them without being too intrusive," assented Collins, who, since the success of his stratagem of the afternoon before, had been in an unusually complaisant mood.
But fate willed that they should be snared without any effort on his part whatever, for just then a porter came by with a truck piled high with luggage, and it and the invalid chair combined to form an impasse from which there was no escaping. Not that either of the young ladies displayed any very evident anxiety to escape.
"Good-morning," said Collins, in his best manner. "My lord," he continued, turning to his companion, "these are the Misses Rushford, to whom we owe so much. I hope I may introduce Lord Vernon to you," he added.
Both of them were laughing as they took, in turn, the hand which Vernon rather eagerly held out.
"I'm awfully glad to meet you," he said, looking from one to the other and trying to decide which was the prettier. "I feel that we do owe you a great deal. When Collins came back yesterday afternoon and told me what he'd had the impudence to ask you, I was—I was—"
"Very wrathy, to put it mildly," said Collins. "But I took it meekly; it was in a good cause."
"And we didn't think it impudent at all," said Sue. "Since we had caused all the trouble, it was only fair that we should bear a part of it. Besides, it wasn't by any means so difficult as Mr. Collins thought it would be."
"You don't mean that Markeld actually asked you! I didn't believe he'd do that, despite Collins's prophecy. He seemed to have too much of high politeness about him."