“We are old friends, Will,” I said, “and I should like, for Nancy’s sake, and because Lady Levett has been almost a mother to me, out of her extreme kindness, that we should remain friends. But when a gentleman salutes me before a company of gentlemen and ladies as his sweetheart, when he talks of fighting other gentlemen—like a rustic on a village green——”
“Wouldst have me fight with swords and likely as not get killed, then?” he asked.
“When he assumes these rights over me, I can ask, I think, for an explanation.”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Esther. “We are grieved, sir, to have even a moment’s disagreement with the son of so honourable a gentleman and so gracious a lady as your respected father and worthy mother, but you will acknowledge that your behaviour on the Downs was startling to a young woman of such strict propriety as my dear Kitty.”
He looked from one to the other as if in a dream.
Then he put his hand into his pocket and dragged out the half sixpence.
“What’s that?” he asked me furiously.
“A broken sixpence, Will,” I replied.
“Where is the other half?”
“Perhaps where it was left, on the table in the parlour of the Vicarage.”