“Perfectly, I thank you, Madam.”
“Oh, Lud, mother, it is but that you do not appreciate Sir Harry’s capacity for disguise. In the past, he has been—many things. To-day we are to admire him in the character of a thunderstorm.”
“Indeed?” he said. “Thunderstorms break.”
“But not on me,” said Dorothy, and ran into the house.
Sir Harry turned away with the scantest bow to Mrs. Verners. This was a new flavor and he wanted to taste it well, to make sure that he approved a Dorothy who could be a precipitate hoyden rushing out-of-doors to an injured kitten and a woman of wit that stabbed him shrewdly. She had variety, this Dorothy; she wasn’t the makings of a dull, complacent wife. Well, and did he want dullness and complacency? He was going to Lancashire, to a life that a Whitworth must live as an example to others: there was to be nothing to demand a wife’s complacency. And as to dullness, heaven save him from it—and heaven seemed, by making Dorothy Verners, to have answered that prayer. He decided to be more in love with Dorothy than before—which, as she wasn’t willing to fly into his arms when he crooked a beckoning finger, was only natural; and went into a shop from which he might express to her the warmth of his sentiment at an appropriate cost. She should see if he was mean!
In the shop he found my Lord Godalming who was turning over some bright trinkets intended for a lady who was not his wife. Godalming was surly, eyeing Whitworth as he called for the best in necklaces that the shopman had to show. “Oh, yes,” said his lordship, “bring out the best for Sir Harry Whitworth. Jewels for Sir Harry and paste for me. I am only a lord.”
“What’s put you out, Godalming?”
“Ain’t the sight of your radiant face enough to put me out? I hate happiness in others.”
“Then I can offer you the consolation of knowing that my happiness will not be visible to you long. I propose very shortly to go North, my lord, and to stay there.” Godalming flopped back against the counter like a fainting man who must support himself and, indeed, his astonishment was genuine enough. “Go North?” he gasped. “Are you gone stark mad?”
“I have flattered myself to the contrary,” said Sir Harry, with complacency. “I have believed that I have recovered my senses.”