A fair-minded girl, Miss Charing realized that Lady Dolphinton was not altogether to be blamed for treating her only child with impatience. She curbed her own impatience, however, and waited until Dolphinton should have finished issuing his painstaking, and somewhat repetitive, instructions to his groom. But exasperation nearly got the better of her when his lordship said, as they walked away together: “I’ll tell you why I said it was a good notion. I don’t want to look at primroses. Don’t want to look at anything. Want to say something Finglass can’t hear.”
“Well, of course!” Kitty said. “That is why I said I should like to walk down this path!”
“You want to say something he can’t hear?” asked his lordship, surprised. “Well, of all things! It’s a—it’s a— well, I forget the word, but there is one. Both of us wanting the same thing.”
“Yes, Dolph, but never mind that!” said Kitty, taking his arm, and pressing it in a motherly fashion. “Tell me what it was you wished to say to me!”
“Wanted to say mustn’t say anything with Finglass up behind. Tells my mother,” explained his lordship.
Once again Miss Charing was obliged to exert considerable self-control. “Dolph, does that creature spy on you?” she demanded.
“Tells my mother where I’ve been. Tells her what I do.”
“Why don’t you turn him off?” she said hotly.
“She wouldn’t let me.”
She gave his arm a little shake. “She could not stop you! You are a man, Dolph, not a schoolboy!”