‘In love?’ It came out more like a jeer than the customary roar. ‘You, still fresh from the nursery – where I had you raised to my own impeccable standards – you dare speak already of love? Then, child, I despair. You can know nothing of love and little of this – this – person. He is no more than a stranger to you! And may I remind you that you speak of your uncle—’

‘Papa!’ Mary felt she had to cut in then, for he was now drifting, rudderless, towards the absurd. ‘We are not related by blood.’ She thought it best not to bring up Dr Knatchbull’s name here. That would only inflame him. One suitor at a time … ‘Mr Knight has been under this roof for much of the season. He has dined with us often.’

‘And thus he repays my kind hospitality?’ At last, the roar found its voice. ‘In refining his dark arts of seduction, even at my own table?’

‘He did not, sir – as you were his witness.’ As she happened to be the one with Right on her side, Mary could keep her voice measured: ‘But, as you are also aware, our families are often together. We are the closest of neighbours. It is a connection, as I understood it, most warmly encouraged by both you and my mother, and one that has afforded us many, quite natural opportunities to deepen our friendship.’

The response was entirely impetuous. ‘Then if so, I regret them! I regret every moment of freedom we have ever allowed you. It has all come upon you too soon and, with the folly of youth, you – yes, even you of whom I was till recently proud – have conducted yourself ill. Strait is the gate, Mary! Strait is the gate—’

‘—and narrow the way,’ Mary finished for him, by rote. ‘I have not forgotten it, Father. Nor do I believe myself to have strayed very far.’

He looked at her now with contempt. ‘And yet you come here to tell me of your friendship with a gentleman, while you are a child?’

‘A child, sir? And yet, as I remember it, one thought sufficiently competent to consider an arrangement with Dr Knatchbull …’ There. How did she dare it?

‘Bah! You make the suggestion of paradox, where in fact there is none. When I, in my role as kind parent, make the case for a suitor, then it behoves you to consider him. Our roles in that process cannot be reversed! You have not the sufficient maturity for freedom of choice. A mere eighteen years on this earth is …’ He paused, lost for words.

In furious desperation, Mary pounced to supply them, though of course only in the mildest of tones: ‘… the same age as my own mother, when she chose you, sir?’