“I would rather punish her than have Jack punished for the rest of his life.”
“Et moi?” she snapped impatiently.
“Ah!” with a gesture learnt in some foreign court, “I can only ask your forgiveness. I can only remind you that she is not your daughter—if she were she would be a different woman—while he IS my son.”
Lady Cantourne nodded as if to indicate that he need explain no more.
“How did you do it?” she asked quietly.
“I did not do it. I merely suggested to Guy Oscard that he should call on you. Millicent and her fiance—the other—were alone in the drawing-room when we arrived. Thinking that I might be de trop I withdrew, and left the young people to settle it among themselves, which they have apparently done! I am, like yourself, a great advocate for allowing young people to settle things among themselves. They are also welcome to their enjoyment of the consequences so far as I am concerned.”
“But Millicent was never engaged to Guy Oscard.”
“Did she tell you so?” asked Sir John, with a queer smile.
“Yes.”
“And you believed her?”