“You would fight him,” said Mrs. Catherine, disdainfully. “Ay! presuming that he was inclined so to demean himself, and was not content with laying his whip about your shoulders, as Marjory Falconer did.”
Fitzherbert started up, enraged. “I can hold no communication with a person who delights in insulting me. You shall rue this, Madam, you shall rue this!”
“Fitz,” said the Honorable Giles, interposing as he passed to the door, “Gillravidge will be angry; you have not arranged this.”
“And with your permission,” added Mrs. Catherine, “I say you do not leave this house till my question is answered.”
Poor Fitzherbert could not afford to incur the anger of Lord Gillravidge. He was compelled to content himself with many humiliations, and this among the rest.
“Madam!, in consideration of my friend’s business, I overlook these personalities. Lord Gillravidge is, as I have said, a man of ancient family, and high breeding, belonging to a most exclusive aristocratic circle, and will not have his privacy broken. His Lordship hoped to be understood—the peculiar feeling of high birth, and necessity for retirement—and must continue to trust that a lady, herself of some station, will offer no opposition.”
“Ancient family!” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine. “Does your English lordling, whose name no man ever heard tell of, till he came to take possession of his prey, dare to say that to me, who can trace my lineage, without break or blot, back to the dark gray man! Tell the reprobate master of you, that my house was set down upon this land, before ever the rank soil and unwholesome heat of cities had brought forth the first ancestor of your evil brood. Tell him, that this people is my people, and that his good blood is a mean fraud, if he does not honor the honorable folk native to a free land. Further, I will spare neither time nor siller to recover them their right; either he will throw open the road this very day, or he will suffer the immediate judgment of the law—I leave him his choice; and now, the need for bearing the sight of you is over, carry my message, and depart from my house.”
Fitzherbert did not linger. Young Sympelton rose to follow him.
“Sir,” said Mrs. Catherine, “you are young to be in such evil hands. Tarry a moment, I would speak further to you.”
The lad hesitated. Fitzherbert was already descending the stair.