Recollecting it, Lord Biddenden reddened, and cast an apologetic look at Kitty. “I beg your pardon! But this business has so much provoked me—! Done in such a scrambling way—! However, I do not mean to put you to the blush, and I am sure we have all of us been in such habits of easy intercourse that there is no reason why you should feel the least degree of mortification!”
“Oh, no, I don’t!” Kitty assured him. “In fact, it is a thing I have wondered about very often, only Hugh told me he was persuaded it could be no such thing. Which, I must own, I was very glad of.”
“Well, upon my word!” said Lord Biddenden, torn between diversion and disapproval. “Hugh told you, did he? So much for your fine talking, my dear brother! No suspicion, indeed! I wonder you will be for ever trying to humbug us all! You should not be talking of such things to Hugh, my dear Kitty, but I shall say nothing further on that head! No doubt you have a comfortable understanding with him, and I am sure I am glad to know that this is so!”
“Well, I knew it would be useless to ask poor Fish,” said Kitty naïvely, “so I spoke to Hugh, because he is a clergyman. Has Uncle Matthew told you that I am not his daughter?”
She turned her eyes towards Hugh as she spoke, and he replied, a little repressively: “You are the daughter of the late Thomas Charing, Kitty, and of his wife, a French lady.”
“Oh, I knew my mother was French!” said Kitty. “I remember when my Uncle Armand brought my French cousins to see us. Their names were Camille and André, and Camille mended my doll for me, which no one else was able to do, after Claud said she was an aristo, and cut her head off.” Miss Charing’s eyes darkened with memory; she added in a brooding tone: “For which I shall never forgive him!”
This speech did not seem to augur well for the absent Captain Rattray’s chances of winning an heiress. Lord Biddenden said fretfully: “My dear Kitty, that must have been years ago!”
“Yes, but I have not forgotten, and I shall always be grateful to my cousin Camille.”
“Ridiculous!”
Hugh interposed, saying: “It is you who are ridiculous, George. However, I must agree with you that my uncle has shown a lack of delicacy in this affair which renders the present situation distasteful to any person of refinement. I am persuaded that it would be more agreeable to our cousin if you and Dolphinton were to withdraw into some other apartment.”