“No, I shouldn’t,” she said frankly. “But I shouldn’t find it congenial to be married to you either, Hugh.”
“There! What did I tell you?” interpolated Biddenden.
“I am sorry,” Hugh said, grave but kind. “For my part, I should count myself happy to be able to call you my wife.”
“Well, it is very obliging of you to say so,” retorted Kitty, “but if you are speaking the truth I cannot conceive why you should never have given me the least suspicion of it until today!”
It was his turn to redden, but he did not allow his eyes to waver from hers, and he replied with scarcely a moment’s hesitation: “The thought, however, has frequently been in my mind. I believe it is not in my nature to fall in love, as the common phrase has it, but I have long felt for you the sincerest esteem and affection. You are young: you have not yet reached your twentieth birthday; I believed that the time to declare myself was not yet. I have sometimes suspected, too, that you had a partiality for another member of the family decided enough to make it useless for me to address you. It was in the expectation of finding all three of my cousins gathered here that I came to Arnside. I have found only Dolphinton, and in these circumstances I do not hesitate to beg you, Kitty, to accept of my hand in marriage, and to believe that at Garsfield Rectory you may be sure of a safe and an honourable asylum.”
“It is not, then, for the sake of Uncle Matthew’s fortune that you have offered for me, but from chivalry towards a penniless creature whom you suppose to have been rejected by—by everyone else?” demanded Kitty breathlessly. “I—I would rather marry Dolph!”
At these alarming words, Lord Dolphinton, who had for some time been sucking the hilt of a paper-knife, which he had found conveniently to hand, sat up with a jerk, and dropped the knife from his suddenly nerveless fingers. “Eh?” he uttered. “But—Said you wouldn’t! Remember it distinctly! Said I might be comfortable again!”
“And so you may, for I meant it!” said Kitty fiercely. “There is no one for whom I have the least partiality, and I don’t wish to marry anyone in your odious family! I think Hugh is a humbug, and Claud has a cruel nature, and Dolph and Freddy are just stupid, and as for Jack I am truly thankful that he was not coxcomb enough to come here, because I dislike him more than all the rest of you together! Goodnight!”
The door slammed behind her, causing Lord Dolphinton to start nervously. Biddenden said: “A ramshackle business you made of it, Hugh, with your damned, long-winded periods, and your fine talk of educating the girl! Much good will your scholarship do you while you have less than common sense! What in the devil’s name possessed you to bring Jack up? Of course she’s fancied herself in love with him for years!”
“It is time she left such childish folly behind her,” said Hugh coldly. “There can be little in Jack to recommend him to a female of sense and principles, after all.”