“I don’t quite understand,” said Mrs Gaunt, “what Constance’ position is. She ought to be the Honourable, don’t you think? The Honourable Constance sounds very pretty. It would come in very nicely with Gaunt, which is an aristocratic-sounding name. People may say what they like about titles, but they are very nice, there is such individuality in them. Mrs George might be anybody; it might be me, as your name is George too. But the Honourable would distinguish it at once. When she called here, there was only Miss Constance Waring written on her father’s card; but then you don’t put Honourable on your card; and as Lady Markham’s daughter——”
“Women don’t count,” said the General, “as I’ve often told you. She’s Waring’s daughter.”
“Mr Waring may be a very clever man,” said Mrs Gaunt, indignantly; “but I should like to know how Constance can be the daughter of a viscountess in her own right without——”
“Is she a viscountess in her own right?”
This question brought Mrs Gaunt to a sudden pause. She looked at him with a startled air. “It is not through Mr Waring, that is clear,” she said.
“But it is not in her own right—at least I don’t think so; it is through her first husband, the father of that funny little creature” (meaning Lord Markham).
“General!” said Mrs Gaunt, shocked. Then she added, “I must make some excuse to look at the Peerage this afternoon. The Durants have always got their Peerage on the table. We shall have to send for one too, if——”
“If what? If your boy gets a wife who has titled connections, for that is all. A wife! and what is he to keep her on, in the name of heaven?”
“Mothers and brothers are tolerably close connections,” said Mrs Gaunt with dignity. “He has got his pay, General; and you always intended, if he married to your satisfaction—— Of course,” she added, speaking very quickly, to forestall an outburst, “Lady Markham will not leave her daughter dependent upon a captain’s pay. And even Mr Waring—Mr Waring must have a fortune of his own, or—or a person like that would never have married him; and he would not be able to live as he does, very comfortably, even luxuriously——”
“Oh, I suppose he has enough to live on. But as for pinching himself in order to enable his girl to marry your boy, I don’t believe a word of it,” exclaimed the General. Fortunately, being carried away by this wave of criticism, he had forgotten his wife’s allusion to his own intentions in George’s favour; and this was a subject on which she had no desire to be premature.