“By Jove, I can make nothing of all this!” cried the Captain, whose bewildered looks fully corroborated the assertion.
“Lady Dorothea, sir, requires you to assure her that I have never made love to you,” said Kate Henderson, with a look of scorn that her Ladyship did not dare to reply to. “_I_,” added she, “have already given my pledge on this subject. I trust that your testimony will not gainsay me.”
“Confound me if I can fathom it at all!” said he, more distracted than ever. “If you are alluding to the offer I made you--”
“The offer you made,” cried Lady Dorothea. “When?--how?--in what wise?”
“No, no, I will speak out,” said he, addressing Kate. “I am certain _you_ never divulged it; but I cannot accept that all the honorable dealing should be on one side only. Yes, my Lady, however you learned it, I cannot guess, but it is perfectly true; I asked Miss Henderson to be my wife, and she refused me.”
A low, faint sigh broke from Lady Dorothea, and she fell back into her chair.
“She would have it,--it's not my fault,--you are witness it's not,” muttered he to Kate. But she motioned him in silence to the door, and then opening the window, that the fresh air might enter, stood silently beside the chair.
A slight shivering shook her; and Lady Dorothea--her cheeks almost lividly pale--raised her eyes and fixed them on Kate Henderson.
“You have had your triumph!” said she, in a low but firm voice.
“I do not feel it such, madam,” said Kate, calmly. “Nor is it in a moment of humiliation like this that a thought of triumph can enter.”
“Hear me,--stoop down lower. You can leave this--tomorrow, if you wish it.”
“I have no need to ask you that what has occurred here should never be mentioned.”
“I feel that I may. There--I am better--quite well, now! You may leave me.” Kate courtesied deeply, and moved towards the door. “One word before you go. Will you answer me one question? I'll ask but one; but your answer must be full, or not at all.”
“I want to know the reason--on what grounds--you declined the proposal of my son?”
“For the same good reason, madam, that should have prevented his ever making it.”
“Disparity--inequality of station, you mean?”
“Something like it, madam. Our union would have been both a blunder and a paradox. Each would have married beneath him!” And once more courtesying, and with an air of haughty dignity, Kate withdrew, and left her Ladyship to her own thoughts.