“If I could feel warrant for such a proceeding,” continued Trevor, calmly, “I intended to speak to you this morning, and ask your consent, even as I spoke to Lady Rea last night, before I addressed your daughter.”
“Just like Fanny—encouraging it!” muttered Aunt Matty.
“Go on, sir, I am listening,” said Sir Hampton, telling himself this was quite a preparation for the bench.
“I came, then, Sir Hampton, to formally propose for your daughter’s hand. Though comparatively a stranger to you, I am well known here—of one of the most ancient county families—and I have eight thousand a year. That, Sir Hampton, is putting the matter in a plain, business-like form. If I am wanting in the proper etiquette, my excuse is my seafaring life.”
“Exactly,” said Aunt Matty, satirically.
The words “prisoner at the bar” were on Sir Hampton’s lips, but he did not utter them; he only rolled his words nice and round, and infused as much dignity as was possible into his tones. “The young man” had insulted him, but he could afford to treat him with dignified composure.
“Mr Trevor,” he began, “I have listened to your remarks with patience”—magisterial here, very—“I have, er-rum I heard your application. For your friends’ sake, I was willing to condone”—capital magisterial word, and he liked it so much that he said it again—“er-rum! to condone that which was past. Er-rum! but under the circumstances, near neighbours as we are, I think it better that all communication”—the clearest magisterial tone here, and repeated—“er-rum! communication between us should cease.”
“Decidedly!” put in Aunt Matty, arranging her mittens.
“Er-rum—hear me out, sir”—a magisterial wave of the hand here, and a quiet settling down into the chair, as of one about to pass sentence—“Er-rum—as to your formal matrimonial proposals, they are quite out of the question. Captain Vanleigh has honoured me by proposing for my daughter Valentina’s hand, and he is accepted.”
“By the young lady?” exclaimed Trevor.