“You know perfectly well that it wasn’t gout which was the matter with him this time.”
“It can’t have been all my letter, can it?”
“It was,” I said.
“Of course I wasn’t going to stand that sort of thing,” said Lalage.
“What sort of thing?”
“The way he talked, or, rather, tried to talk. I soon stopped him. That’s what makes me so hot. I wish you’d seen poor Pussy’s face. I was afraid every minute he’d mention her name and then she would have died of shame. That’s just the kind of thing which would make Pussy really ill.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him that it was his plain duty to put the matter before the Archdeacon and that if he didn’t do it I should simply get some one else and then he’d jolly well feel ashamed of himself and be afraid to look any one in the face for weeks and weeks. I didn’t mention that Pussy was the future wife, of course. I’m much too fond of her to hurt her feelings.”
I should have liked to hear a description of the expression on Miss Battersby’s face. I should also have liked to hear what my uncle said in reply to Lalage’s remarks, but I felt an anxiety so acute as greatly to dull my curiosity.
“Had you any one particular in your mind,” I asked, “when you said that you’d get somebody else to go to the Archdeacon?”