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"In the meantime," rejoined Richard, who had a not unnatural repugnance to Miss Malliver, and was now thoroughly angry, "I will turn you too out of the room, and for the same reason." Richard felt, with every true gentleman, that the workman has a claim to politeness as real as that of any gentleman. The man who cannot see it is a cad.
"What am I to understand by that?" "Whatever your ladyship chooses, except that I will not hold any farther communication with you on the matter." "Then you mean to dispute the title?" "I decline to say what I mean or do not mean to do." Lady Ann rose to ring the bell. Miss Malliver met Richard in the doorway. He turned. "I am going to bid Theodora good-bye," he said.
He laid her on a couch, rang the bell, and asked the man to take the child to her governess. The man saw blood on the child's dress, and when he reached the schoolroom with her, informed the governess that she had had an accident in the library. Miss Malliver, with one of her accomplished shrieks, dispatched him to tell lady Ann.
"I should like to have just a word with my sister Theodora," said Richard. "I doubt if she will see you. Miss Malliver, will you take Mr. Tuke to the schoolroom, and then inquire whether Miss Lestrange is able to leave her room. You will stay with her; she is far from well. Perhaps you had better go and inquire first. Mr. Tuke will wait you here."
Lady Ann gave him the coldest of polite recognitions; Theodora was full of a gladness hard to keep within the bounds which fear of her mother counselled; Victoria was scornful, and as impudent as she dared be in the presence of her father; Miss Malliver was utterly wooden, and behaved as if she had never seen him before; Arthur was polite and superior. Things went pretty well, however.
She was one of the few girls perhaps not very few who imagine themselves uglier than they are. Miss Malliver, the governess, was a lady of uncertain age, for whom lady Ann had an uncertain liking. The younger girl, her pupil, was named Victoria, but commonly called Vic, and not uncommonly Vixen. The younger boy was at school, where they were constantly threatening to send him home.
"Richard!" she cried, with a burst of indignation, the first, I fancy, she had ever felt, or at least given way to, "you are the only gentleman in the family!" Richard laughed, and Theodora dried her eyes. Miss Malliver was near enough to be able to report, and the poor girl had a bad time of it in consequence. "I will not trouble Arthur," said Richard.
Miss Malliver, who would hardly have been sorry had Vixen's throat been cut, rose in wrath, and would have swooped down the stair upon Richard. "Leave him to me, Malliver," said lady Ann, and rising, went down the stair.
"You shall do no such thing!" cried her ladyship. Richard flew up the stair, and, believing Miss Malliver had not gone to his sister, went straight to her room. The moment Theodora saw him, she sprang from the bed where she had lain weeping, and threw herself into his arms. He was the only one who had ever made her feel what a man might be to a woman! He told her he had come to bid her good-bye.
She lived in the neighbourhood, but was more at Mortgrange than at home; one consequence of which was, that, as would-be-clever Miss Malliver phrased it, the house was very much B. Wyldered. Nor was that the first house the little lady had bewildered, for she was indeed an importation from a new colony rather startling to sedate old England.
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