“If I wasn’t an Earl, I shouldn’t have to. Shouldn’t have to offer for Kitty, either.”
Hugh patted him kindly on the shoulder, but said to Kitty, with some severity: “I do not know what you can have been about to have upset the poor fellow like this! It was wrong, and thoughtless in you, my dear Kitty.”
“It was not I who upset him, but that wicked, cruel mother of his!” cried Kitty, stung by this unmerited reproof. “I should have supposed you must have known that, for you are very well aware how she uses him!”
He said, in a voice of still graver censure: “Whatever may be my aunt’s faults, such language is quite improper, and, indeed, uncalled-for.”
“Well, it certainly ain’t that!” interposed Miss Plymstock, in her downright way. “I was never one for mealy-mouthed talk: don’t believe in it! What Miss Charing says is the plain truth: wicked and cruel she is, and so I shall tell her, when I meet her ladyship!”
The Rector stiffened. “May I request you, Kitty, to present me to your friend? I fancy I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance.”
“Good gracious, what can I have been thinking about?” exclaimed Kitty. “Pray forgive me, Hannah! This, as you have guessed, is Mr. Rattray. And, Hugh, this is Miss Plymstock, who is betrothed to Dolph!”
He bowed, but said: “Indeed! I must suppose that the engagement is of very recent date, since this is the first intimation I have received of it,”
“No, it is of long-standing date, but secret.”
“Secret,” repeated Dolphinton, nodding his head, and looking anxiously at the Rector. “Going to marry Hannah. Kitty says I shall. Kitty said I should hoax my mother, and I did. I got the carriage, too. Did it well, didn’t I, Hannah?”