“Because she thought you had asked her to marry you out of pity! Of course she recoiled!”
“Lady Luttrell, are you serious? Do you indeed think—”
“Think! I know!” said her ladyship. “Your scruples were very fine, I make no doubt, but how should a chit of Pen’s age understand what you were about? She would not care a fig for your precious honour, and I dare say—indeed, I am sure!—that she thought your forbearance mere indifference. And the long and the short of it is that she has gone back to her aunt, and will very likely be bullied into marrying her cousin!”
“Oh no, she will not!” said Sir Richard, with a glance at the clock on the mantelshelf. “I am desolated to be obliged to leave you, ma’am, but if I am to overtake that stagecoach this side of Chippenham, I must go.”
“Excellent!” she said, laughing. “Do not waste a thought on me! But having caught the stage, what do you propose to do with Pen?”
“Marry her, ma’am! What else?”
“Dear me, I hope you do not mean to join my foolish son at Gretna Green! I think you had better bring Pen to Crome Hall.”
“Thank you, I will!” he said, with the smile which she privately thought irresistible. “I am very much in your debt, ma’am.”
He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it, and left the room, calling for Cedric.
Cedric, who had been partaking of breakfast in the coffee-room, lounged out into the entrance-parlour. “The devil take you, Ricky, you’re as restless as that plaguey friend of yours! What’s the matter now?”