“Who did it?”
“Is that your business, dear Ronnie?”
“Oh, of course, it was that miserable cad from Dakota, whom you forced through the gates of Otterbourne House.”
“If you know, why ask?”
“What an insult to us all! What a position to put us in! When everybody’s seen the man at your ball where we all were——!”
His indignation and emotion checked his utterance.
His sister laughed a little, but she was bored and annoyed. What business was it of his? Why could she not be let alone to arrange these little matters to her own convenience in any ingenious way she chose?
“How could you make the duke appear to play such a part?” said Hurstmanceaux. “He is the soul of honor and of proper pride. What have you made him look like? It is the kind of thing that is a disgrace to the country! It is the kind of thing that makes the whole peerage ridiculous and contemptible. Imagine what the Radical press will say! Such scandalous jobbery justifies the worst accusations.”
“Don’t read the Radical newspapers then. I shall read them, because they will be so deliciously funny. They are always so amusing about Cocky.”
“You have singular notions of amusement. I do not share them.”