“It will tell very prettily, Harry,” I said. “Nancy will dress it up for me, and will relate it in her best and liveliest way; how you tried to get a little country girl of sixteen to engage herself to you; how, when you found her a year later turned into a lady, you thought that you could terrify her into accepting your proposals, on the plea that she had already promised; how you turned sulky; how you quarrelled with Lord Chudleigh, and made him accept your duel; how you were taken prisoner by mistake, and kicked, cuffed——”
“I was not kicked!” he cried.
“You were. Dr. Powlett’s patients are always kicked. Then you had buckets of cold water thrown over you; you were put into a strait-waistcoat and chained to the wall: while I came and asked you whether you preferred remaining in the madhouse or promising to behave like an honourable gentleman, and abstain from insulting persons who have done no harm to you or yours.”
“I believe,” he said, “that it is none other than yourself who has had me captured and treated in this manner, femina furens!”
“A mere mistake, Harry,” I replied, “of this good physician’s zealous servants. Why, it might have happened in any such establishment. But for me to order it—oh! impossible—though, when one comes to think of it, there are few things a woman—Femina furens, the English of which, Master Harry, I know—would not do to save two friends from hacking and slashing each other.”
Upon this he gave way.
“I must,” he said, “get away from this place with what speed I may, even if I have to pink half the men in Epsom to prove I am no coward. Kitty, call the doctor. I believe, mad nymph, thou hast a devil!”
“Nay, Harry, all this was planned but to lay the devil, believe me. But promise first.”
“Well, then. It is a hard pill to swallow, Kitty.”
“Promise.”