"Nay, ma'am, softly, if you please," Sir Hervey interposed, with the least touch of sternness in his tone. "You go too far."
Mrs. Northey glared at him; she was pale with anger. "What?" she cried. "Hoity-toity! do you think I shall not say what I like about my own sister?"
"But not about my wife!" he answered firmly.
She stepped back as if he had aimed a blow at her, so great was her surprise. "What?" she shrieked. "Your wife?" While the others looked at him, thunderstruck; and Lady Betty, who, on the fringe of the group, was taking in all with childish dilated eyes, uttered a scream of delight.
"Your wife?" Mr. Northey gasped.
"Precisely," Coke answered. "My wife."
But Mrs. Northey could not, would not, believe it. She thought that he was lending himself to some cunning scheme; some plan for bringing about a reconciliation. "Your wife?" she repeated. "Do you mean that Sophia, my sister----"
"Preferred a quiet wedding à deux," he answered, helping himself to a pinch of snuff, and smiling slightly, as at the recollection. "Your Grace will understand," he continued, turning with easy politeness to the duchess, "how it amused me to read Mrs. Northey's letter under such circumstances."
But Mrs. Northey was furious. "If this be true," she said hoarsely, "but I do not believe it is, why did you do it? Tell me that? Until I know that I shall not believe it!"
Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Northey will believe it, I am sure," he said, with a look in that gentleman's direction. "For the rest, ma'am, it was rather Lady Coke's doing than mine. She heard that her brother was about to make a ruinous marriage, and discovered that he was actually in the company and under the influence of the Irishman, Hawkesworth, whom you know. There were those who should more properly have made the effort to save him, but these failed him; and the result of it was, thanks to her, he was saved. Thanks to her, and to her only," Sir Hervey repeated with a look, beneath which Mr. Northey quailed, and his wife turned green with rage, "since, as I said, those who should have interfered did not. But this effected, and Keith, who should have married her brother, being in attendance--well, we thought it better to avail ourselves of his services. 'Twould have been a pity, your Grace, to lose a guinea," Coke added, his eyes twinkling, as he turned to the duchess. "It was the best instance I've ever known of 'a guinea in time saves ninety!'"