“Miss Norah will not have an opportunity of forgetting the—article in question, since it is apparently necessary to repeat to you that, this evening, she is engaged to me.”
“To me, that is.”
This, of course, was Basil Carter.
“I would recommend you, Major Tibbet, to understand that Purchase speaks in a general sense only, since, in the letter, as a matter of plain fact, Miss Norah is engaged to me.”
“Major Tibbet, Basil, is too wise a man to discredit my positive statement.”
“He will be an exceedingly unwise one if he casts the faintest shadow of a doubt on mine.”
Then came Mr Hammond.
“I’m the last person in the world to wish to breed dissension where there’s disputing already, because a pretty quarrel’s too good a thing to spoil; but I take leave to remark, Mr Carter, and Mr Purchase, and Major Tibbet, that Miss Norah will relieve you of all your difficulties by bestowing her society on me.”
“Norah,” observed mamma, in that icy tone which I knew so well, and which I knew suggested that she was not in the very sweetest temper, “I think you had better retire to your own room.”
“To her own room!” cried Mr Hammond. “And why, Mrs O’Brady, would you break our hearts and darken the heavens?”