'How? I do not understand. Is the firm to be in future Pennycomequick and Co.—the Co. to stand for Cusworth?'
'You ask how,' said Philip. 'I reply, as my wife.'
He allowed his aunt a minute to digest the information, and then added:
'I am unable to ask you to stay longer at present, as I must inform Mrs. Cusworth of the engagement.'
'Let me tender my congratulations,' said Mrs. Sidebottom; 'and let me recommend a new lock on the garden-door, lest And Co. should bring in through it a train of rapacious out-at-elbow relatives, who would hardly be satisfied with a great-coat and a hat.'
Philip was too incensed to answer. He allowed his aunt to open the front-door unassisted.
When she was gone, he said to Salome:
'I am not in a humour to see your mother now. Besides, it is advisable, for her sake, that the news should be told her through you. I am so angry with that insolent—I mean with Mrs. Sidebottom, that I might frighten your mother. I will come later.'
He left Salome and mounted to his study, where he paced up and down, endeavouring to recover his composure, doubly shaken by his precipitation in offering marriage without premeditation, and by his aunt's sneer. He had been surprised into taking the most important step in life, without having given a thought to it before. He was astonished at himself, that he, schooled as he had been, should have acted without consideration on an impulse. He had been carried away, not by the passion of love, but of anger.
In the story of the Frog-Prince, the faithful Eckhard fastened three iron bands round his heart to prevent it from bursting with sorrow when his master was transformed into a loathsome frog. When, however, the Prince recovered his human form, then the three iron bands snapped in succession. One hoop after another of hard constraint had been welded about the heart of Philip, and now, in a sudden explosion of wrath, all had given way like tow.