“Hoity-toity!” quoth his lordship, between petulance and simulated amusement. “What's all the pother? Hortensia, dear—”
“I'll not be married!” she repeated firmly, her wide brown eyes meeting his in absolute defiance, head thrown back, face pale but fearless.
“I don't believe,” ventured Mr. Caryll, “that you could be if you desired it. Leastways not here and now and by this.” And he jerked a contemptuous thumb sideways at Mr. Jenkins, toward whom he had turned his shoulder. “Perhaps you have realized it for yourself.”
A shudder ran through her; color flooded into her face and out again, leaving it paler than before; yet she maintained a brave front that moved Mr. Caryll profoundly to an even greater admiration of her.
Rotherby, his great jaw set, his hands clenched and eyes blazing, stood irresolute between her and Mr. Caryll. Jenkins, in sheer terror, now sank limply to a chair, whilst Gaskell looked on—a perfect servant—as immovable outwardly and unconcerned as if he had been a piece of furniture. Then his lordship turned again to Caryll.
“You take a deal upon yourself, sir,” said he menacingly.
“A deal of what?” wondered Mr. Caryll blandly.
The question nonplussed Rotherby. He swore ferociously. “By God!” he fumed, “I'll have you make good your insinuations. You shall disabuse this lady's mind. You shall—damn you!—or I'll compel you!”
Mr. Caryll smiled very engagingly. The matter was speeding excellently—a comedy the like of which he did not remember to have played a part in since his student days at Oxford, ten years and more ago.
“I had thought,” said he, “that the woman who summoned me to be a witness of this—this—ah wedding”—there was a whole volume of criticism in his utterance of the word—“was the landlady of the 'Adam and Eve.' I begin to think that she was this lady's good angel; Fate, clothed, for once, matronly and benign.” Then he dropped the easy, bantering manner with a suddenness that was startling. Gallic fire blazed up through British training. “Let us speak plainly, my Lord Rotherby. This marriage is no marriage. It is a mockery and a villainy. And that scoundrel—worthy servant of his master—is no parson; no, not so much as a hedge-parson is he. Madame,” he proceeded, turning now to the frightened lady, “you have been grossly abused by these villains.”