CHAPTER LIII
AN ODD PROPOSAL
As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered the hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley’s emerging from the vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his travelling costume—a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler in folds about his throat, his ‘chimney-pot’ on, and his fur cap sticking out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle’s room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders to the wall, like a mummy in a museum.
I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall, in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.
But he had changed his mind, it would
