‘I come with Lord Chester on this occasion,’ said Constance, ‘as his nearest female relation. As your ladyship is probably aware, I am his second cousin.’
The Chancellor bowed. Then the Professor spoke.
‘I ask your ladyship’s permission to appear in support of my pupil on this important occasion. His guardian, Lady Boltons, is unfortunately too ill to be present.’
‘There is no reason, I suppose,’ said the Chancellor, ungraciously, and with a glance of some anxiety at the Duchess, ‘why you should not be present, Professor Ingleby;—unless, that is, the Earl of Chester would rather see me alone. But the proceedings are most formal.’
Lord Chester, who was very grave, merely shook his head. Then the Chancellor shuffled about her papers for a few moments, and addressed her ward.
‘Your lordship will kindly give me your best attention,’ she began, with some approach to blandness. ‘I am glad, in the first place, to congratulate you on your health, your appearance, and your strength. I have received the best reports on your moral and religious behaviour, and your docility, and—and—so on, from your guardian, Lady Boltons, and I am only sorry that she is not able to be here herself, in order to receive from me my thanks for the faithful and conscientious discharge of her duties, and from the Duchess of Dunstanburgh a recognition of her services in those terms which come from no one with more weight and more dignity than from her Grace.’ The Duchess held up a hand in deprecation; the Professor nodded, and lifted up her hands and smiled, as if a word of thanks from the Duchess was all she, for her part, wanted, in order to be perfectly happy. The Earl, one is sorry to say, sat looking straight at the Chancellor without an expression of any kind, unless it were one of patient endurance. The Chancellor went on.
‘You will shortly, you now know, pass from my guardianship to the hands and care of another far more able and worthy to hold the reins of authority than myself.’
Here Constance rose.
‘Before your ladyship goes any further, I beg to state to you that Lord Chester has only this morning informed me of a proposal made to you by her Grace of Dunstanburgh, which is now under your consideration.’
‘It certainly is,’ said the Chancellor, ‘and I am about——’