“To be sure you did, my dear,” she told him, sitting down beside him.
“Do you tell me that you have contracted an engagement without my aunt’s knowledge?” demanded Hugh sternly.
Dolphinton looked frightened; Kitty said impatiently: “Of course he has! How can you be so absurd, Hugh? As though you were not very well aware that she wishes him to marry me! You know how it is with him! He has been obliged to keep his engagement a secret. And that is why I have brought him and Miss Plymstock to you, so that you may marry them!”
He looked quite thunderstruck. “Are you telling me, Kitty, that this is why you are here, and sent me so urgent a message that I found myself constrained to respond to it, in spite of the fact that my leaving Biddenden in such haste put my brother and his wife to considerable inconvenience? I went to Biddenden upon family affairs of some moment, and all must be at a stand until I return there.”
“Well, I am sure I am very sorry, Hugh, but you may return as soon as you have performed your part here, you know!” said Kitty reasonably.
“That,” he said, “I am by no means inclined to do! I do not know under what circumstances Dolphinton has contracted his engagement, but it is plain to me that it is not one of which my aunt would approve. You would not else be here! I cannot lend myself to anything that savours of the clandestine.”
“Hugh!” gasped Kitty. “I had thought you poor Dolph’s friend!”
“I am his friend, as I hope he knows.”
“You cannot be, for you would not stand there talking in that heartless way if you were! Dolph and Miss Plymstock love one another!”
Miss Plymstock, who had been stolidly staring at the Rector, interposed, to say bluntly: “Seems to me it ain’t in your power to refuse to marry us, sir, for all this fine talking. Foster’s of age, and so am I. You’re thinking, I daresay, that I ain’t good enough for your cousin. Well, I don’t pretend to be any better born than what I am, but what I do say is that I shall make Foster a better wife than many a one that has a title.”