“Eh?” quoth his lordship. “Who the devil are you? One of his friends?”
“Your lordship overwhelms me,” said Mr. Caryll gravely, making a bow. He observed the bewilderment in Ostermore's eyes, and began to realize at that early stage of their acquaintance that to speak ironically to the Earl of Ostermore was not to speak at all.
It was Hortensia—a very tearful Hortensia now who explained. “This gentleman saved me, my lord,” she said.
“Saved you?” quoth he dully. “How did he come to save you?”
“He discovered the parson,” she explained.
The earl looked more and more bewildered. “Just so,” said Mr. Caryll. “It was my privilege to discover that the parson is no parson.”
“The parson is no parson?” echoed his lordship, scowling more and more. “Then what the devil is the parson?”
Hortensia freed herself from his protecting arms. “He is a villain,” she said, “who was hired by my Lord Rotherby to come here and pretend to be a parson.” Her eyes flamed, her cheeks were scarlet. “God help me for a fool, my lord, to have put my faith in that man! Oh!” she choked. “The shame—the burning shame of it! I would I had a brother to punish him!”
Lord Ostermore was crimson, too, with indignation. Mr. Caryll was relieved to see that he was capable of so much emotion. “Did I not warn you against him, Hortensia?” said he. “Could you not have trusted that I knew him—I, his father, to my everlasting shame?” Then he swung upon Rotherby. “You dog!” he began, and there—being a man of little invention—words failed him, and wrath alone remained, very intense, but entirely inarticulate.
Rotherby moved forward till he reached the table, then stood leaning upon it, scowling at the company from under his black brows. “'Tis your lordship alone is to blame for this,” he informed his father, with a vain pretence at composure.