'Oh,' said I, raising my eyebrows, and putting into that one exclamation as much sardonic emphasis as I could, while I kept my eyes fixed upon the cat and my hands much occupied with my deer-stalker, 'and may I be permitted to learn how I have done this?'
'It is useless to put on a satirical manner with me, Mr. Maude,' said the lady with dignity; 'I am perfectly aware that it was you who objected to Mr. Scott's remaining here long enough to make proposals for my daughter, and that, in fact, you interfered in the most marked way with his courtship of her.'
'And are you ignorant of the fact, madam, that to interfere with a man's courtship is the very way to increase its warmth, and that if my interference, as you call it, could not screw him up to the point of proposing, nothing ever would?'
Mrs. Ellmer dropped into her lap the work which she had snatched up on my entrance, and at which she had been stitching away ever since, as a hint that she was busy and would be glad to be left alone; at the same time being, I think, not sorry to vent her ill-humour on some one.
'You are using very extraordinary expressions, Mr. Maude,' she said acidly. 'If her mother was satisfied with the gentleman's behaviour, I really don't see what business you had in the affair at all.'
'Do you forget that her father has made me responsible for the care of her? that she is certainly under my guardianship, and nominally engaged to me.'
'Nominally! There it is. To be engaged to a man who acknowledges that he never means to marry you! There's a pretty position for a girl, as I've said to Babiole scores of times!'
My heart leaped up.
'You've said that to Babiole!' I echoed, in a voice of suppressed rage that brought the little slender virago at once to reason.
'Well, Mr. Maude, with all respect to you, the position is something like that,' she said more reasonably.