“The parson’s in that fellow!” Lord Romfrey exclaimed. “Now I have the story. She came to him, he declined the gift, and you were turned into the curtain for them. If he had only been off with her, he would have done the country good service. Here he’s a failure and a nuisance; he’s a common cock-shy for the journals. I’m tired of hearing of him; he’s a stench in our nostrils. He’s tired of the woman.”
“He loves her.”
“Ma’am, you’re hoodwinked. If he refused to have her, there’s a something he loves better. I don’t believe we’ve bred a downright lackadaisical donkey in our family: I know him. He’s not a fellow for abstract morality: I know him. It’s bargain against bargain with him; I’ll do him that justice. I hear he has ordered the removal of the Jersey bull from Holdesbury, and the beast is mine,” Lord Romfrey concluded in a lower key.
“Nevil has taken him.”
“Ha! pull and pull, then!”
“He contends that he is bound by a promise to give an American gentleman the refusal of the bull, and you must sign an engagement to keep the animal no longer than two years.”
“I sign no engagement. I stick to the bull.”
“Consent to see Nevil to-night, my lord.”
“When he has apologized to you, I may, ma’am.”
“Surely he did more, in requesting me to render him a service.”