Miss Wantage saw nothing either arbitrary or unreasonable in this speech. She agreed to it, but a little doubtfully. “Marry the curate, do you mean, Sherry?” she asked, slightly wrinkling her short nose.
The Viscount stared at her in the liveliest astonishment. “Why the devil should I mean anything of the sort? Of course I don’t! Of all the nonsensical girls, you’re the worst, Hero!”
Miss Wantage accepted this rebuke meekly enough, but said: “Well, I think it’s a nonsensical notion too, but Cousin Jane says it must be the curate, or that horrid school.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that the curate wants to marry you?” demanded Sherry.
Miss Wantage nodded. “He has offered for me,” she said, not without pride.
“It seems to me,” said his lordship severely, “that you have been getting devilish flighty since I saw you last! Marry the curate, indeed! I dare say he kissed you behind the door too?”
“Oh no,Sherry!” Miss Wantage assured him. “He has behaved with the greatest propriety, Cousin Jane says!”
“So I should hope!” said his lordship, rather spoiling the austerity of this remark, however, by adding reflectively, a moment later: “Sounds to me like another dull dog.”
“Yes, he is,” agreed Hero. “I quite think he may be very kind, but oh, Sherry, if you won’t be offended with me, indeed I would rather be a governess, for I don’t at all want to marry him!”
“What beats me,” said his lordship, “is why he should want to marry you! He must be a curst rum touch, Hero. You’d never do for a parson’s wife! You can’t have told him how you glued the Bassenthwaites’ pew that time everyone was in such a pucker.”