Miss Hardacre stammered out the words, striving with all her might and main to smile.
“Surely you remember me, madam?” quoth Mr. Dick, clumsily, looking about as great a fool as a man could look in such a predicament.
The Lady Letitia was beaming upon the pair with a mischievous twinkle in her wicked old eyes. She knew that her nephew was watching them from the other side of the hall. But even the dowager was not prepared for the distressing and regrettable scene that was to follow. Miss Hardacre, instead of giving her hand to the painter, shrank back with a shrill scream, and proceeded to faint in the proper pathetic fashion, lying limp and pale in Miss Dorothy Pierpoint’s arms. Poor Wilson stood like an emblem of confusion, nodding his heavy head, and staring first at the unconscious Jilian and then at the Lady Letitia. There was much stir and bustle at the upper end of the hall. Old ladies began to crowd in sympathetic curiosity towards the oriel, with bobbing feathers and inquisitive noses.
“Dear, dear, the room is uncommonly hot to be sure.”
“Will some one give her my smelling-salts?”
“Dear me, sir”—this from a thin dame to Mr. Wilson, who was pushing through the press—“do you know that you are trampling on my gown?”
The painter had been edging out of the oriel, conceiving that he could best mend the mischief he had done by taking his departure. There must have been some blundering somewhere; either the Lady Letitia had been mistaken in her knowledge of the world, or he had been mistaken in the Lady Letitia. Looking very red and foolish, he was shambling towards the door when footsteps came rattling after him and a hand gripped the collar of the painter’s coat.
Wilson, twisting round, saw Mr. Lot Hardacre’s furious red face staring into his.
“I came as Richard Jeffray’s friend, sir.”
“Curse you, sir, how dared you show your blackguardly face before my sister!”
Wilson shook himself free from Lot’s hold. He was no angel in the matter of temper, and his patience was giving way under the strain.
“Don’t swear at me, sir,” he said. “If I have been made a fool of I am not going to be kicked for it.”
Mr. Lot fired out a number of oaths, and struck Wilson across the face with the back of his open hand.