'I shall go,' said Ruby. 'I'm not going to be kept here a prisoner for any one. I can go when I please. You wait, Felix, and I'll be down in a minute.' The girl, with a nimble spring, ran upstairs, and began to change her dress without giving herself a moment for thought.
'She don't come back no more here, Sir Felix,' said Mrs Pipkin, in her most solemn tones. 'She ain't nothing to me, no more than she was my poor dear husband's sister's child. There ain't no blood between us, and won't be no disgrace. But I'd be loth to see her on the streets.'
'Then why won't you let me bring her back again?'
''Cause that'd be the way to send her there. You don't mean to marry her.' To this Sir Felix said nothing. 'You're not thinking of that. It's just a bit of sport,--and then there she is, an old shoe to be chucked away, just a rag to be swept into the dust-bin. I've seen scores of 'em, and I'd sooner a child of mine should die in a workus', or be starved to death. But it's all nothing to the likes o' you.'
'I haven't done her any harm,' said Sir Felix, almost frightened.
'Then go away, and don't do her any. That's Mrs Hurtle's door open. You go and speak to her. She can talk a deal better nor me.'
'Mrs Hurtle hasn't been able to manage her own affairs very well.'
'Mrs Hurtle's a lady, Sir Felix, and a widow, and one as has seen the world.' As she spoke, Mrs Hurtle came downstairs, and an introduction, after some rude fashion, was effected between her and Sir Felix. Mrs Hurtle had heard often of Sir Felix Carbury, and was quite as certain as Mrs Pipkin that he did not mean to marry Ruby Ruggles. In a few minutes Felix found himself alone with Mrs Hurtle in her own room. He had been anxious to see the woman since he had heard of her engagement with Paul Montague, and doubly anxious since he had also heard of Paul's engagement with his sister. It was not an hour since Paul himself had referred him to her for corroboration of his own statement.
'Sir Felix Carbury,' she said, 'I am afraid you are doing that poor girl no good, and are intending to do her none.' It did occur to him very strongly that this could be no affair of Mrs Hurtle's, and that he, as a man of position in society, was being interfered with in an unjustifiable manner. Aunt Pipkin wasn't even an aunt; but who was Mrs Hurtle? 'Would it not be better that you should leave her to become the wife of a man who is really fond of her?'