And indeed, when Ralph called at Gloucester Place on Monday, Sir Douglas forgot himself to an extent which is scarcely possible to a gentleman, unless he happen to be an Anglo-Indian.
Ralph stated his case well and clearly, but for a long time Sir Douglas could scarcely believe his ears. When at last doubt was no longer possible, he sat for some minutes in absolute silence, the muscles of his face twitching ominously.
"By Jove! sir, you have the coolness of Satan!" he burst forth at last, in a voice of concentrated passion; and every word that Ralph added to better his cause was torn to pieces and held up to derision with merciless cruelty.
The moment his visitor was out of the house, Sir Douglas put on his hat and went in search of Mona.
"It is not true, is it," he said, "that you want to marry that fellow?"
So Mona told the story of how the clever young doctor fell in love with the village shop-girl.
"King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, in fact," he sneered. "If that young whipper-snapper had had the impertinence to tell me that he thought you were really a shop-girl, I should have knocked him down on my own doorstep. Who is Dr Dudley? I never heard of him before."
"I am afraid I am no authority on pedigrees," Mona said, smiling. "But I have no doubt you could get the required information from Colonel Lawrence."
To the last Sir Douglas maintained that he could not imagine what Mona saw in the fellow; but he came by degrees to admit to himself that things might have been worse. If Mona was determined to practise medicine, as was certainly the case, it was as well that she should have a man to relieve her of those parts of the work in which her womanhood was not an essential factor; and it was a great matter to think that he could have his niece in London under his own eye.
Jack Melville's opinion was characteristic.