“Well, ma’am! well?” he said. He would bring her to the furnace.
“Won’t you see it all, kind sir?” Mrs. Berry appealed to him in pathetic dumb show.
Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was mentally cursing at Folly, and reckoning the immediate consequences, but he looked uninstructed, his peculiar dimple-smile was undisturbed, his comfortable full-bodied posture was the same. “Well, ma’am?” he spurred her on.
Mrs. Berry burst forth: “It were done this mornin’, Mr. Harley, in the church, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to, by licence.”
Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony. “Oh!” he said, like one who is as hard as facts, and as little to be moved: “Somebody was married this morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr. Feverel?”
Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl from him, saying: “Do he look like a new married bridegroom, Mr. Harley?”
Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic gravity.
“This young gentleman was at church this morning?” he asked.
“Oh! quite reasonable and proper then,” Mrs. Berry begged him to understand.
“Of course, ma’am.” Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid inanimate limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his mouth queerly. “You were all reasonable and proper, ma’am. The principal male performer, then, is my cousin, Mr. Feverel? He was married by you, this morning, by licence at your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty breakfast, and left intoxicated.”