"Your future husband?"
"My future husband." She said it with an air of calmness which irritated the old gentleman more than any show of heat would have done.
"Violet, if ever you marry that young blackguard----"
"Stop, uncle, before you say something which I may find it hard to forgive." She spoke as if she wished him to understand that the discussion was closed; that all she had to do was to make an announcement. "I am leaving Nuthurst this afternoon; I am going up to town by the three-twenty-three. I have told Cleaver to send my things on after me and what things to send. I shan't want her. You may dismiss her or keep her on, as you please. I dare say she may be found useful in the house."
"Dismiss Cleaver! At a moment's notice! I catch myself at it. And she has waited upon you hand and foot since you wore your first pair of long stockings!"
As Geoffrey Hovenden growled the words out he surveyed her as a clean-bred old mastiff might an impertinent young lap-dog. She went calmly on, holding out to him a sheet of paper:
"My address in town will be 2A Cobden Mansions, York Place. I've written it on this piece of paper in case you should forget it. It is quite respectable; you need be under no apprehension. All the occupants of Cobden Mansions are women, who have to supply satisfactory references before they are accepted as tenants. Good-bye."
Ignoring the hand which she advanced, he glared at her as if he would like to treat her to a good shaking.
"Are you in earnest?"
"I am. I know, uncle, how much I have to thank you for; please don't think I'm ungrateful because I am leaving Nuthurst. If I had married any of those hundred thousand gentlemen you just spoke of, I should have had to leave your house for his, so it comes to the same thing, because I hope that my husband will soon have a home for me. I don't suppose we shall see much of each other in future----"