My own pride would not let me urge you to marry me against
your desire, and I care for you too much to cause you any pain.
Assure me with your own lips that you wish our engagement to be at
an end, and I shall release you without another word."
The family were in town, and Mary sent her letter by a trusty hand.
The countess read it with huge satisfaction, and, re-sealing it,
gave it herself into her son's hands. It promised a happy solution
of the problem. In imagination, she had all the night been
listening to a vulgar breach of promise case. She herself had been
submitted to a most annoying cross-examination by a pert barrister.
Her son's assumption of the name of Robinson had been misunderstood
and severely commented upon by the judge. A sympathetic jury had
awarded thumping damages, and for the next six months the family
title would be a peg on which music-hall singers and comic
journalists would hang their ribald jokes. Lord C- read the
letter, flushed, and dutifully handed it back to his mother. She
made pretence to read it as for the first time, and counselled him
to accord the interview.
"I am so glad," she said, "that the girl is taking the matter
sensibly.
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