“Good heavens!”
He nodded. “Doesn’t like me. Doesn’t want me to marry Hannah. She says he don’t like Earls. Shows you, doesn’t it?”
She thought that it certainly threw a little light, but she refrained from saying so. “Tell me about Miss Plymstock!” she begged. “Is she pretty?”
“Yes,” said his lordship. “Got the kind of face I like. Thought so the first time I saw her.”
“When was that, Dolph?”
“Cheltenham, last year. Mama took the cure. Thought I was hacking about the country. Wasn’t. Hoaxed her.”
“A very excellent thing to have done!” approved Kitty. “I think you were very clever to have thought of it!”
“Hannah thought of it. I ain’t clever: she is. But she don’t bother me. Like to marry her,” he said wistfully.
It appeared to Miss Charing that there would be little likelihood of his being permitted to do so. Only one circumstance could render such a match tolerable in Lady Dolphiriton’s eyes. She put a tentative question, and received in answer one of his melancholy headshakes.
“No. No fortune,” he said.