Jeffray had hurried forward with an expression of pain upon his face. He glanced angrily at the Lady Letitia, and followed Sir Peter, who had marched pompously out of the room. The baronet frowned at him and ignored the hand that Richard had extended.
“Order my coach, lad,” was all he said.
“But, Sir Peter—”
They had reached the hall, and Richard, who had given his orders to Peter Gladden, turned to appease the angry baronet. Sir Peter, who had been bubbling with a seething sense of wrong, exploded his wrath in Richard’s face.
“Don’t ask me to any more of your infernal drums or routs,” he said. “Those old women were for hinting that I cheated—cheated, sir, to pocket their damned miserly sixpences!”
“I am sure, Sir Peter—”
“Deuce take your sureness, sir. I tell you that painted old image of an aunt of yours tricked us here, sir, to make fun of us before that old she-dog of a Bilson and the rest. Damme, sir, are we Hardacres to be set down to supper after all the Bilsons and Perkabys and nobodies in the county? Come, Jill, my lass, they sent you down with the snuffler, did they! Deuce take you, sir, my daughter ain’t one to be treated as though she were born on a dung-heap and dragged up in a hovel!”
Richard, bewildered, shamed and very miserable, turned to Miss Hardacre with a piteous and boyish appeal in his dark eyes.
“I wish I had never given the party,” he said.
“Thank you, cousin!”