“Do not distract me, aunt. Sir, you are an insolent impertinent!”
“But of a nature serenely calm, madam, to temper your excessive cholers. Indeed, we are each other’s opposites, for whiles you are something ungentle, very headstrong, extreme capricious and vastly vindictive, I am——”
“Utterly detestable, sir!” she cried indignantly. “Enough—enough! Good Gad! must I sit and hear you thus abuse me? Forbid it, heaven! Is it not enough affliction that my name should be coupled with yours in the scandalous columns of an infamous journal?”
“Can you possibly mean The Polite Monitor, madam?” he sighed.
“What else, sir? And you ha’ read the hateful thing as a matter of course!”
“No, my lady. I wrote it.”
“You, Sir John!” exclaimed the Duchess.
“You—’twas you?” cried my lady.
“Myself!” quoth Sir John. “’Twas writ in haste and hath small merit, I fear, and little to commend it, but such as ’tis——”
“Commend it!” cried my lady. “Commend it! Oh, this is too much; you are insufferable! Sir John Dering, you weary me; you may retire!” And magnificently disdainful, she arose.