The ugly look faded. “At least admit you could not!” said Mr.Westruther.
“No, I know I could not,” replied Freddy, “but I dashed well don’t mind trying to!”
Mr. Westruther began to laugh. “Freddy, you dog, you took me off guard and off balance, and I have a good mind to knock you through that window! Oh, take your hand off my arm, Hugh! You can’t be fool enough to suppose I mean to have a turn-up with Freddy!” He shook the Rector off as he spoke, and straightened his neckcloth. That done, he held out his hand imperatively to Kitty. “Come, cry friends with me!” he said. “I will apologize for the whole, confess that I entirely misread a situation that is now perfectly plain to me, and remove myself immediately from your presence.” He held her hand for a moment, grinning rather ruefully at her; then he lightly kissed her cheek, and said: “Accept my best wishes for your happiness, my dear, and believe that I shall do my utmost to cut you out with Uncle Matthew! My felicitations, Freddy. I’ll serve you trick-and-tie for that leveller one of these days. Oh, no, pray don’t accompany me, Hugh! Really, I have had more than enough of my family for one day!”
A bow to Miss Plymstock, a wave of the hand, and he was gone. The front-door slammed behind him; they heard his tread going down the garden-path, the click of the gatelatch, and, in another moment or two, the sound of his horses’ hooves. Miss Plymstock rose, and shook out her skirt. “I’m bound to say I ain’t at all sorry to see the last of him,” she remarked. “Nor I haven’t told you yet, Mr. Standen, how very much obliged to you I am for bringing that licence,”
But Mr. Standen was not attending. He addressed himself to the Rector. “Oughtn’t to have done it, Hugh. Not the thing! He wasn’t expecting it.”
“Very true,” agreed the Rector. “It was, in a sense, improper, but since you could not, I fear, have landed him the smallest punch under any other circumstances, I cannot regret it. He came by his just deserts. The most deplorable feature of the business is that such a scene should have been enacted in this room, under the eyes of two ladies.”
“Better have gone into the garden,” nodded Lord Dolphinton. “Like watching a good mill.”
“What you would have watched, my dear Foster, would not have been a mill, but a murder!” said the Rector tartly.
“Why, Hugh!” exclaimed Kitty. “I do believe you are quite cross because it was Freddy who knocked him down, and not you!”
“I would remind you, Kitty, that I am in Holy Orders,” said the Rector austerely. “And let me tell you that if I had chosen to come to fisticuffs with Jack—However, we have said enough on this subject! The licence which Freddy has handed to me does indeed enable me to marry you to Miss Plymstock, Foster, but it in no way alters my reluctance to do so. Pray do not misunderstand me, ma’am! I do not wish to oppose the marriage. From what I have observed, I am inclined to think that Foster would derive considerable benefit from it.”