Lord Biddenden waited until he had been supported out of the room before observing, with a significant look: “It is not difficult to understand what has cast him into this ill-humour, of course!”

“Didn’t invite you,” said Dolphinton, showing his understanding.

“Oh, hold your tongue!” exclaimed Biddenden, quite exasperated. “My uncle must be in his dotage! A more ill-managed business—”

“Ill-managed indeed,” said Hugh. “There has been a want of delicacy which must be excessively disagreeable, not to you, but to our cousin here!”

“She is not our cousin!”

“My dear brother, we have thought of her as our cousin ever since she was in her cradle.”

“Yes, I know we have,” said Biddenden, “but you heard what my uncle said! She’s not!”

Hugh said arctically: “That was not what I meant. I am happy to be able to say that such a suspicion has never crossed my mind.”

“Coming it rather too strong, Hugh!” said Biddenden, with a short laugh.

“You forget your company!” said Hugh, allowing annoyance to lend an edge to his voice.

Recollecting it, Lord Biddenden reddened, and cast an apologetic look at Kitty. “I beg your pardon! But this business has so much provoked me—! Done in such a scrambling way—! However, I do not mean to put you to the blush, and I am sure we have all of us been in such habits of easy intercourse that there is no reason why you should feel the least degree of mortification!”

“Oh, no, I don’t!” Kitty assured him. “In fact, it is a thing I have wondered about very often, only Hugh told me he was persuaded it could be no such thing. Which, I must own, I was very glad of.”

“Well, upon my word!” said Lord Biddenden, torn between diversion and disapproval. “Hugh told you, did he? So much for your fine talking, my dear brother! No suspicion, indeed! I wonder you will be for ever trying to humbug us all! You should not be talking of such things to Hugh, my dear Kitty, but I shall say nothing further on that head! No doubt you have a comfortable understanding with him, and I am sure I am glad to know that this is so!”

“Well, I knew it would be useless to ask poor Fish,” said Kitty naïvely, “so I spoke to Hugh, because he is a clergyman. Has Uncle Matthew told you that I am not his daughter?”

She turned her eyes towards Hugh as she spoke, and he replied, a little repressively: “You are the daughter of the late Thomas Charing, Kitty, and of his wife, a French lady.”

“Oh, I knew my mother was French!” said Kitty. “I remember when my Uncle Armand brought my French cousins to see us. Their names were Camille and André, and Camille mended my doll for me, which no one else was able to do, after Claud said she was an aristo, and cut her head off.” Miss Charing’s eyes darkened with memory; she added in a brooding tone: “For which I shall never forgive him!”

This speech did not seem to augur well for the absent Captain Rattray’s chances of winning an heiress. Lord Biddenden said fretfully: “My dear Kitty, that must have been years ago!”

“Yes, but I have not forgotten, and I shall always be grateful to my cousin Camille.”

“Ridiculous!”

Hugh interposed, saying: “It is you who are ridiculous, George. However, I must agree with you that my uncle has shown a lack of delicacy in this affair which renders the present situation distasteful to any person of refinement. I am persuaded that it would be more agreeable to our cousin if you and Dolphinton were to withdraw into some other apartment.”

“I daresay it would be more agreeable to you,” retorted his lordship, “and I should be very glad to oblige you, but if you imagine that I am going to bed at seven o’clock you are the more mistaken!”

“There is not the smallest necessity for you to go to bed. Really, George—!”

“Oh, yes, there is!” said his lordship, with considerable acerbity. “No doubt my uncle has a very comfortable fire built up in the library, but if there is one in any other room in the house I have yet to discover it!”

“Well, there is one in his bedchamber, of course,” said Kitty. “And, if you did not object to sitting with Fish, there is a fire in the schoolroom. Only I daresay you would not like it very much.”

“No, I should not!”

“And poor Dolph wouldn’t like it either. Besides, he wants to say something,” pursued Kitty, who had been observing with an indulgent eye the spasmodic opening and shutting of Lord Dolphinton’s large mouth.

“Well, Foster, what is it?” said Hugh encouragingly.

“I won’t go with George!” announced Dolphinton. “I don’t like George. Didn’t come to see him. Oughtn’t to be here. Wasn’t invited!”

“Oh, my God, now we are back at that!” muttered Biddenden. “You might just as well take yourself off to bed, Dolphinton, as remain here!”

“No, I might not,” returned Dolphinton, with spirit. “I ain’t a married man! What’s more, I’m an Earl.”

“What has that to say to anything, pray? I wish you will—”

“Important,” said Dolphinton. “Good thing to marry an Earl. Be a Countess.”

“This, I collect, is a declaration!” said Biddenden sardonically. “Pretty well, Foster, I must say!”

“Are you being so obliging as to make me an offer, Dolph?” enquired Miss Charing, in no way discomposed.

Lord Dolphinton nodded several times, grateful to her for her ready understanding. “Very happy to oblige!” he said. “Not at all plump in the pocket—no, not to mention that! Just say—always had a great regard for you! Do me the honour to accept of my hand in marriage!”

“Upon my word!” ejaculated Biddenden. “If one did not know the truth, one would say you were three parts disguised, Foster!”

Lord Dolphinton, uneasily aware of having lost the thread of a prepared speech, looked more miserable than ever, and coloured to the roots of his lank brown locks. He cast an imploring glance at Miss Charing, who at once rose, and went to seat herself in a chair beside him, patting his hand in a soothing way, and saying: “Nonsense! You said it very creditably, Dolph, and I perfectly understand how it is! You have offered for me because your Mama ordered you to do so, haven’t you?”

“That’s it,” said his lordship, relieved. “No wish to vex you, Kitty—really very fond of you!—but must make a push!”

“Exactly so! Your estates are shockingly mortgaged, and your pockets are quite to let, so you have offered for me! But you don’t really wish to marry me, do you?”

His lordship sighed. “No help for it!” he said simply.

“Yes, there is, because I won’t accept your offer, Dolph,” said Miss Charing, in a consoling tone. “So now you may be comfortable again!”

The cloud lifted from his brow, only to descend again. “‘No, I shan’t,” said his lordship wretchedly. “She’ll take a pet. Say I must have made poor work of it.”

“What astonishes me,” said Biddenden, in an aside to his brother, “is that my Aunt Augusta permitted him to come here without her!”

“Didn’t want to,” said Dolphinton, once more startling his relatives by his ability to follow the gist of remarks not addressed to himself. “Uncle Matthew said he wouldn’t let her cross his threshold. Said I must come alone. I didn’t object, only she’ll say I didn’t do the thing as she told me. Well, I did! Offered for you—said I was an Earl—said I should be honoured! Won’t believe it, that’s all!”

“Oh, don’t distress yourself!” said Biddenden. “We three are witnesses to testify to your having expressed yourself with all the ardour and address imaginable!”

“You think I did?” said Dolphinton hopefully.

“Oh, heaven grant me patience!” exclaimed his cousin.

“Indeed, you stand in need of it!” said Hugh sternly. “You may be quite easy, my dear Foster: you have done just as my aunt bade you. I believe I may say that no persuasions of hers could have prevailed upon our cousin to have changed her nay to yea.”

“Well, you may,” conceded Miss Charing. “Only I am very well able to speak for myself, I thank you, Hugh! Are you wishful of making me an offer?”

Lord Dolphinton, his mission honourably discharged, turned an interested gaze upon his clerical cousin; Lord Biddenden exclaimed: “This is intolerable!” and Hugh himself looked a trifle out of countenance. He hesitated, before saying, with a constrained smile: “There is a degree of awkwardness attached to this situation which might, I fancy, be more easily overcome were we to converse alone together.”

“Yes, but you cannot expect George and poor Dolph to remove to a room where there is no fire!” objected Miss Charing reasonably. “It would be useless to apply to Uncle Matthew for leave to kindle any more fires tonight: you must know that! Nothing puts him into such a taking as habits of wasteful extravagance, and he would be bound to think it a great waste of coals to make a fire for George or for Dolph. And as for our situation’s being awkward, if I do not regard that I am sure you need not. In fact, I am happy to be able to tell as many of you as I can that I have not the smallest wish to marry any of you!”

“Very likely you have not, Kitty, but that you should express yourself with such heat—or, I may say, at all!—is very unbecoming in you. I am astonished that Miss Fishguard—an excellent woman, I am sure!—should not have taught you a little more conduct!”  It occurred to Lord Biddenden that a quarrel with Kitty would scarcely forward the project he had in view, and he added, in a more cordial tone: “But, indeed, I must own that such a situation as this must be considered in itself to have passed the bounds of propriety! Believe me, Kitty, I feel for you! You have been made the object of what I cannot but deem a distempered freak.”