"Pooh!
damn it, Smirke, you must be mad--she's seven or eight years older than
you are."
"Did you find that any objection?" cried Smirke piteously, and alluding,
of course, to the elderly subject of Pen's own passion.
The lad felt the hint, and blushed quite red. "The cases are not similar,
Smirke," he said, "and the allusion might have been spared. A man may
forget his own rank and elevate any woman to it: but allow me to say our
positions are very different."
"How do you mean, dear Arthur?" the Curate interposed sadly, cowering as
he felt that his sentence was about to be read.
"Mean?" said Arthur. "I mean what I say. My tutor, I say my tutor, has no
right to ask a lady of my mother's rank of life to marry him. It's a
breach of confidence. I say it's a liberty you take, Smirke--it's a
liberty. Mean, indeed!"
"O Arthur!" the Curate began to cry with clasped hands, and a scared
face, but Arthur gave another stamp with his foot and began to pull at
the bell. "Don't let's have any more of this. We'll have some coffee, if
you please," he said with a majestic air; and the old butler entering at
the summons, Arthur bade him to serve that refreshment.
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