“Where, and how was she engaged?”
Without asking permission Mr. Knight entered the house and stepped into a cloak-room that opened out of the hall. Being curious, Sir John followed him. Mr. Knight shut the door and, supporting himself against the frame of a marble wash-basin with gilded taps, said:
“I saw her in the chancel of the Abbey Church and she was kissing my son, Godfrey; at least he was kissing her, and she seemed to be responding to his infamous advances, for her arms were round his neck and I heard sounds which suggested that this was so.”
“Holy Moses!” ejaculated Sir John, “what in the name of hell are they after?”
“Your question, stripped of its unnecessary and profane expletives, seems easy to answer. I imagine that my immoral son has just proposed to your daughter, and been accepted with—well, unusual emphasis.”
“Perhaps you are right. But if he had I don’t see anything particularly immoral about it. If I had never done anything worse than that I shouldn’t feel myself called to go upon my knees and cry peccavi. However, that ain’t the point. The point is that a game of this sort don’t at all suit my book, but,” here he looked at the clergyman shrewdly, “why do you come to tell about it? I should have thought that under all the circumstances you should have been glad. Isobel isn’t likely to be exactly a beggar, you know, so it seems devilish queer that you should object, as I gather you do; unless it is to the kissing, which has been heard of before.”
“I do object most strongly, Sir John,” replied Mr. Knight in his iciest tones. “I disapprove entirely of your daughter, whose lack of any Christian feeling is notorious, and whose corrupting influence will, I fear, make my son as bad as herself.”
“Damn her lack of Christian feeling, and damn yours and your impudence too, you half-drowned church rat! Why don’t you call her Jezebel at once, and have done with it? One of the things I like about her is that she has the pluck to snap her fingers at such as you and all your ignorant superstitions. What are you getting at? That is what I want to know.”
“I put aside your insults to which as a clergyman it is my duty to turn the other cheek,” replied Mr. Knight, with a furious gasp. “As to the rest I am trying to get at the pure and sacred truth.”
“You look as though you would do better to get at the pure and sacred brandy,” remarked Sir John, surveying him critically, “but that’s your affair. Now, what is the truth?”