The duchess laughed heartily. "'Twas cheap at any rate, Sir Hervey," she said. "I am sure for my part I congratulate you."
"I don't!" Mrs. Northey cried, before he could answer. "She has behaved abominably! Abominably!" she repeated, her voice quivering with spite. For, strange human nature! here was the match made, on making which she had set her heart; yet so far was she from being pleased, or even satisfied, she could have cried with mortification. "She has behaved infamously!"
"Tut, tut!" Sir Hervey cried.
But the angry woman was not to be silenced. "I shall say it!" she persisted. "I think it, and I shall say it."
"Of Miss Maitland, as often as you please," he retorted, bowing. "Of Lady Coke only at your husband's peril. Of course, if you do not wish to receive her, ma'am, that is another matter."
But on this Mr. Northey interposed. "No, no," he cried, fussily. "Mrs. Northey is vexed, if I may say so, not unnaturally vexed by the lack of confidence in her, which Sophia has shown. But that--that is quite another thing from--from disowning her. No, no, let me be the first to wish you happiness, Coke!" And with an awkward essay at heartiness, and an automaton-like grin, he shook Sir Hervey by the hand. "I'll fetch her up," he continued, "I'll fetch her up! My dear, ahem! Congratulate Sir Hervey. It is what we wanted from the first, and though it has not come about quite as we expected, nothing could give us greater pleasure. It's an alliance welcome in every respect. Yes, yes, I'll bring her up."
He hurried away, while the duchess hastened to add a few words of further congratulation, and Mrs. Northey stood silent and waiting, her face now red, now pale. She had every reason to be satisfied, for except in the matter of Tom--and there Sophia had thwarted her selfish plans--all had turned out as she wished. But not through her, there was the rub! On the contrary, she had been duped, she felt it. She had been tricked into betraying how little heart she had, how little affection for her sister; and bitterly she resented the exposure.
But even her face cleared in a degree when Sophia appeared. As the girl moved forward on Sir Hervey's arm--who went gallantly to the door to meet her--so far from exhibiting the blushing pride of a woman vain of her conquest, glorying in the trick she had played the world, she showed but the timid, frightened face of a shrinking child. Her eyes sought the floor, nervously; her bearing was the farthest removed from exultation it was possible to conceive. So different, indeed, was she from all they had looked to see in the new Lady Coke, the heroine of this odd romance, that even Mrs. Northey found the cold reconciliation on which her husband was bent more feasible, the frigid kiss more possible than she had thought; while to the duchess the bride's aspect seemed so unnatural, that she drew Sir Hervey aside and questioned him keenly.
"What have you done to her?" she said. "That a runaway bride? Why, if she had been dragged to the altar and sold to a Jew broker she could hardly look worse, or more down-hearted! Sho, man, what is it?"
"She's troubled about her brother," Coke explained elaborately. "She's saved him from a wretched match, but he's taken himself off, and we don't know where to look for him."