“Well, that don’t signify!” said the Dowager, who had been listening to him intently. “He’ll consent fast enough when he learns that
“May I tell him that, ma’am?”
“I said you might marry Cressy with my goodwill, if you could find a way out of this scrape without setting tongues wagging, and I’m a woman of my word! How do you mean to do it?”
He smiled. “I don’t ma’am: it would be a task quite beyond my capability!”
“Beyond anyone’s, my boy,” said Sir Bonamy. “There’s bound to be a deal of talk: no getting away from that!”
“None at all, sir. The only thing to be done is to sell the world a bargain!—I beg your pardon, ma’am!—to publish a Banbury story, which the tattle-boxes may discuss to their hearts’ content without doing any of us an ounce of harm.”
“Another of your hoaxes, eh? I thought as much!” said the Dowager, eyeing him with a certain grim respect.
“The last one, I promise you!” he said. “And only with your approval, ma’am!”
“You’ve as much effrontery as your brother!” she told him. “Out with it!”
“Yes, ma’am! Little though any of you may know it, my love for Cressy is of long standing. I met her when I was last in England, and formed an enduring passion for her, which, however, I—er—kept locked in my breast!”
“Why?” demanded Cressy, blinking in bewilderment.
“I knew my case to be hopeless. Your father would not have entertained my suit, nor did I feel that my circumstances were such as would enable me to support you in the style to which you were accustomed.”
“You
“Certainly I was! Noble, too, don’t you think?”
“No,” replied Evelyn frankly. “Buffleheaded!”
“Dear one, Evelyn is perfectly right!” said Lady Denville. “You couldn’t have been such a goose! Depend upon it, everyone must know that you came into a comfortable fortune when your father died!”
“Let the boy alone!” commanded the Dowager. “
“I’m much obliged to you, ma’am! Well, I withdrew, never dreaming that my passion was reciprocated, and that I was dashing Cressy’s hopes to the ground.”
“Oh, Kit, no!” Cressy uttered imploringly. “Don’t tell me I hadn’t the wit to throw out even
“No, no!” he assured her. “You had too much maidenly reserve to do so! And far too much pride to let anyone suspect your secret. You resolutely thrust me out of your mind.”
“No, I didn’t: I wondered if Evelyn wouldn’t suit me just as well. After all, he’s as like you as he can stare!”
“That’s an even better notion,” said Kit approvingly. “We now arrive at the point where we stand on unassailable ground. My godfather died, leaving his entire fortune to me. I built the whole story round that circumstance, because it is precisely what
“Only if I can also have too much pride to let anyone suspect my secret!” stipulated Evelyn. “Not even for you am I going to languish with a broken heart, Kester!”
Sir Bonamy, who had listened in rapt interest to the tale, said: “Well, if ever I knew you had it in you, Kit! Why, I shouldn’t wonder at it if you could write a book, or a play, or some such thing!” He perceived, with faint surprise, that Cressy had collapsed into helpless giggles. “I’m bound to say I don’t see what there is to laugh at: in my opinion you made a dashed moving thing of it, my boy! You know, Amabel, I begin to think he’ll go a long way after all!”
“I
Kit’s lips twitched at these tributes, but he was looking at the Dowager. “Will it do, ma’am?”
She was not attending, and vouchsafed no answer. He waited; and after a short interval she said abruptly: “I’ll write to Stavely: no sense in leaving anything to chance! You’ll give the letter to him, and take care he reads it! I never in my life listened to a sicklier, stupider story, but, from what I’ve seen of you, all you would do, if I was to tell you I wouldn’t have it, would be to think of something even more outrageous! Cressy, you may give me your arm! I’m going to bed, for I’m fagged to death!” She bade the assembled company a cursory good night, but informed Kit, holding open the door for her, that she would thank him not to get himself hanged while she was still alive, and able to feel the shame of being connected with a gallows-bird. After that, she allowed him to kiss her hand, and withdrew, leaning heavily on Cressy’s arm.
“Kester, if you do indeed mean to spread this story, we must give it a new touch! You could no more tell it as it stands than I could. Anyone who knows us would guess we were cutting a sham!”
“Good God,
“Oh, no!” agreed Lady Denville. “I know
“For my part,” said Sir Bonamy firmly, “I shall say I ain’t on the high gab!”
“That’s the ticket, sir!” said Kit, grinning at him. “Give ’em a set-down!”
“Yes, but do you think it might give people quitea wrong notion?” suggested Lady Denville. “Could you, perhaps, say that it is a—a most
“I
“What do you think Evelyn should say, Kit?” asked her ladyship anxiously.
“Nothing whatsoever!” he replied.
“That’s fortunate!” remarked his twin.
“All Evelyn has to do,” said Kit, answering the doubtful question in her ladyship’s eyes, “is to behave exactly as he would if the story were true! Poker up, assume an air of distant civility, look down his nose—
“And how, you uppish Jack-in-the-pulpit, do
“If it please your lordship—or even if it doesn’t!—” retorted Kit, “I shan’t be obliged to answer them, because by the time the news is out, I shall be in Vienna! Now, don’t eat me! Before I make good my escape, I am going to divulge my apocryphal story to the person for whose benefit it was principally designed. And if you imagine, Eve, that—” He broke off, as the door opened, and looked quickly round.
But it was Cressy who came into the room, and, as she told him, only to bid him goodnight, and to tell him that she had left the Dowager chuckling. “I said I was positive you would make a stir in the world, and that’s what set her off: she said she hadn’t a doubt you would, and fell into such a fit of choking that I was in the greatest dread that it would carry her off! Kit, only a Fancot
“Tomorrow, love,” he answered, smiling tenderly down at her.