"Is that to be all off? I insist upon having an answer to that question."
"I believe you fancy, mamma, that a lot of men can be played like a parcel of chessmen, and that as soon as a knight is knocked on the head you can take him up and put him into the box and have done with him."
"Poor Mr. Morton! I do feel he is badly used because he is so honest. I sometimes wish that I could afford to be honest too and to tell somebody the downright truth. I should like to tell him the truth and I almost think I will. 'My dear fellow, I did for a time think I couldn't do better, and I'm not at all sure now that I can. But then you are so very dull, and I'm not certain that I should care to be Queen of the English society at the Court of the Emperor of Morocco! But if you'll wait for another six months, I shall be able to tell you.' That's what I should have to say to him."
"I am not. But I shan't say it. And now, mamma, I'll tell you what we must do."
"I can do nothing of the kind. He knows the Duke." The Duke with the Trefoils always meant the Duke of Mayfair who was Arabella's ducal uncle.
"Well enough to go there. There is to be a great shooting at Mistletoe,"--Mistletoe was the duke's place,--"in January. I got that from him, and he can go if he likes. He won't go as it is: but if I tell him I'm to be there, I think he will."
"Well;--I told him a tarradiddle of course. I made him understand that I could be there if I pleased, and he thinks that I mean to be there if he goes."
"But I'm sure the Duchess won't have me again."
"You could go to Brighton with Miss De Groat;--or what does it matter for a fortnight? You'll get the advantage when it's done. It's as well to have the truth out at once, mamma,--I cannot carry on if I'm always to be stuck close to your apron-strings. There are so many people won't have you."
"Arabella, I do think you are the most ungrateful, hard-hearted creature that ever lived."
"Very well; I don't know what I have to be grateful about, and I need to be hard-hearted. Of course I am hard-hearted. The thing will be to get papa to see his brother."
"Yes;--that's what I mean to try. The Duke, of course, would like me to marry Lord Rufford. Do you think that if I were at home here it wouldn't make Mistletoe a very different sort of place for you? The Duke does like papa in a sort of way, and he's civil enough to me when I'm there. He never did like you."