But Madame Koller would not be pacified. It was not the liberty he had tried to take which most infuriated her, she inadvertently declared, but the idea that she, Elise Koller, would marry a country parson. She raved. What! She, Elise Koller, born a Peyton, should condescend to that ridiculous person? What would her aunt, Sally Peyton, say to it? What would the shade of the departed Koller say to it? She had been civil to him, and forsooth, he had come, like a thief in the night, and proposed to marry her--her, who might have married a duke--a prince--anybody. Madame Koller was very mad, and used just the extravagant and hysterical language that people of her type do sometimes. As for Mr. Cole, those two slaps had sobered him as instantly and as completely as anything could. He sat bolt upright on the sofa, while Pembroke with a half smile of contempt in his face that really exasperated Madame Koller more than poor Cole had done, listened to her tirade. What a virago the woman was, to be sure. But how handsome she was too! “Pembroke,” said poor Cole, rising and coming forward, looking quite pale and desperate, “don’t try to excuse me. I don’t deserve any excuse. I mean to write to the bishop to-morrow and make a clean breast of it--and any punishment he may inflict, or any mortification I may have to endure because of this, I’ll take like a man. Madame Koller, I humbly ask your pardon. I hardly knew what I was doing.” “To get drunk in my house,” was Madame Koller’s reply. “Hardly that,” said Pembroke, quietly. “Made drunk by your precious cousin, Ahlberg.” “I’ll send Louis away if you desire me,” cried Madame Koller, eagerly. “I desire nothing of the kind. It is no affair of mine. Come, Cole, you’ve done the best you could by apologizing. I’ll see that those fellows say nothing about it. Good evening, Madame Koller.” “Must you go, Pembroke--now--” “Immediately. Good-bye,” and in two minutes he and Cole were out of the house. CHAPTER VII.