What she meant I couldn't say; whatever it was, it made him turn away from her.
'Edith! You're--you're doing me a great injustice.'
Her voice faltered when she spoke again.
'Is this--is this to be parting of the ways? Won't you speak, and so save me from shaming you?'
'You'll shame yourself if you will not be advised by me.'
'Then I'll be shamed. For I'm of opinion that to be a party to the concealment of what I deem to be the truth, now that I know it, would be to make my shame much more.' She lifted Jimmy in her arms. 'My little man, it's my sad duty to have to inform you that you're the Most Honourable the Marquis of Twickenham. My Lord Marquis, I salute you.'
She kissed him. It was plain that Jimmy had no more notion why she did it, or what was the meaning of her hotch-potch of words, than I had. He wasn't very far from crying.
I had been listening to their going at it hammer and tongs, in a genteel sort of way, with, strong on me, a growing feeling that the world was turning topsy-turvy. When she said that to my boy I at last had a chance of getting a word in edgeways.
'If you please, miss, what was that you said to Jimmy?'
For answer she set down Jimmy and picked up his father's likeness.