“I’m dashed sure we shouldn’t!” said Freddy, with feeling.
“You may easily hit upon an excuse for our keeping the engagement private. After all, it will only be for one month!”
He blinked. “But there’s no sense in being engaged for a month!”
“Freddy,” she said earnestly, “anything may happen in a month!”
“Yes, I know it may. The thing is I ain’t one of these care-for-nothings, and I don’t want anything to happen. No, and another thing! I don’t want to be roasted all over town, which I should be. Everyone knows I ain’t in the petticoat line!”
“No one will know we are engaged,” she coaxed him. “I mean, no one except the family, because we shan’t announce it in a formal way.”
“Now, listen, Kit!” said Freddy reasonably. “If no one’s to know of it, there ain’t a bit of sense in it!”
A faint flush stole into her cheeks. “Yes, there is, because we are obliged to hoax Uncle Matthew. And—and I think we won’t tell anyone—anyone at all!—that it is all a hum, because—because—perhaps your father would not like it, and—and Uncle Matthew might get to hear the truth!”
“I don’t see that,” said the captious Mr. Standen. “Never stirs outside the house! Who’s to tell him?”
“Jack would, if he knew the truth!” flashed Kitty.
“Well, he wouldn’t if we—” He broke off, as a brilliant solution presented itself to him. “That’s it!” he said. “Wonder I didn’t think of it before. Wonder you didn’t. Ask Jack to do it for you! Daresay he would: done a lot of ramshackle things in his time. Likes being the talk of the town, too. Regular cool hand!”
“Ask Jack!” she repeated, in a very alarming voice. “I wouldn’t ask Jack—I wouldn’t ask Jack even to frank a letter for me!”
“Wouldn’t be any use if you did,” said Freddy, always practical. “He ain’t a Member of Parliament!”
“I hate Jack!” declared Kitty, her bosom heaving.
Freddy was surprised. “Thought you liked him. Had a notion—”
“Well, I do not! I think he is a great deal worse even than George! In fact, I forbid you, Freddy, to admit him into your confidence about our engagement!”
Mr. Standen had a vague feeling that he was treading upon dangerous ground. Why Miss Charing should have become so suddenly agitated he had no idea; but he suspected uneasily that she had some scheme in mind which she had not yet disclosed to him. Her proposal seemed to him absurd, not to say preposterous; he pointed out to her that there was no fear that he might confide in Mr. Westruther. “Nothing to confide,” he said. “There ain’t an engagement.”
Miss Charing argued in vain. Acutely uncomfortable, more than a little alarmed, he clung obdurately to his refusal.
“It is such a little thing to do for me!” Kitty said.
“No, it ain’t. You can’t call making such a cake of myself a little thing!”
“You will not: there is not the least occasion for anyone to suppose that you have made a cake of yourself!”
“Well, it’s what they would think. What’s more, they’ll say I did it to get my fingers on the old gentleman’s rolls of soft.”
“No, because when nothing comes of the engagement they will perceive that they were mistaken!”
“Won’t perceive anything of the sort. Only thing they will perceive is that you’ve tipped me the double! Dash it, Kit—”
“Freddy, you would not condemn me to remain at Arnside, used like a—a—a drudge!”
“No, of course I wouldn’t, but—”
“Or to marry Hugh!”
“No, but—”
“But, Freddy, you cannot expect me to accept Dolph’s offer!”
“No, but—”
“And Claud has not offered at all, besides being an odious person!”
“No, is he?” said Freddy, interested. “Haven’t seen him, myself, since he first joined, but I daresay you’re right. To tell you the truth, I never liked any of the Rattrays above half. Now, take George, for instance! Know what he—”
“Well, I can’t take George, because he is married already,” said Kitty, ruthlessly cutting short this discursion. “Besides being quite as odious as Claud! Freddy, you know I would not hold you to it!”
“Yes, that’s all very well, but—”
“If this one opportunity—the only one I can ever be offered:—is denied me,” declared Kitty dramatically, “all hope is at an end!”
“Yes, but—I mean—No, dash it, Kitty—!”
“And it will be you, whom I have always believed to be the kindest of my cousins—at least, you are not indeed my cousin, for I am quite alone in the world, but I have ever regarded you as my cousin—it will be you who have inexorably slammed to the gates upon my aspirations!”
“Done what?” demanded Freddy.
“Condemned me to a life of misery and—and of indigent old age!”
“No, that’s coming it too strong!” protested Freddy. “I never—”
“I should not have asked you to help me,” said Kitty, stricken by remorse. “Only it seemed to me that here, perhaps, was a chance offered me of escaping from my wretched existence! I see that it will not do! I beg your pardon, Freddy: pray do not think of it again!”
With these noble words, Miss Charing rose from the table, and retired to stand before the fire with her back to the room. A stifled sob, a sniff, the flutter of Mr. Standen’s maltreated handkerchief, bore witness to the courageous attempt she was making to suppress her tears. Mr. Standen regarded her bowed shoulders with dismay. “Kit! No, Kit, for God’s sake—!” he said.
“Do not give it another thought!” begged Miss Charing, brave but despairing. “I know I am alone in the world—I have always known it! It was stupid of me to suppose that there was one person to whom I might turn! There is no one!”
Horrified, Mr. Standen uttered: “No, no, I assure you—! Anything in my power—! But you must see, my dear girl—dash it, it’s impossible!”
Ten minutes later Miss Charing, restored to smiles, was thanking him warmly for his exceeding kindness. “And perhaps we ought to return to Arnside,” she suggested. “I must say, Freddy, I shall like very much to see Hugh’s face when he learns that we are betrothed!”
Mr. Standen agreed that the prospect of making a pigeon of his cousin went some way towards reconciling him to the pitfalls ahead of him; but Kitty’s words recalled to his mind the question which had been for some time troubling him. “How am I to take you back to Arnside without creating the devil of a dust?” he demanded. “If no one’s to know it’s all a fudge, it won’t do to let it be known you’ve been here with me this evening. George and Hugh would be bound to guess it was a take-in.”
“Oh, there will not be the least difficulty!” she declared optimistically. “I will draw my hood well over my face, and if you will stop the chaise at the gates, and set me down, I can slip through the shrubbery to the side-door, and up the backstairs to my own bedchamber. I told Fish I should lock my door, because I would not see anyone, I was so cross; and you may depend upon it that no one has the smallest notion I am not at this moment laid down upon my bed. And if you pay off the postboy, he will not be able to gossip in the stables. There is no cause for any apprehension!”
“Yes, but I don’t want to pay off the postboy!” objected Freddy. “Hired the chaise for the whole journey, you see.”
“Oh, well, the postboy must take it to the Green Dragon for the night!” said Kitty, dealing summarily with this problem. “You may easily contrive that! And when you enter the house, you must say you have come to see me, because I do think, Freddy, we shall go on more prosperously if you do not meet Uncle Matthew until we can confront him together.”
With this, Mr. Standen found himself to be in entire agreement; and as everything seemed now to be provided for, and the hands of the clock on the mantel-shelf stood at twenty minutes past nine o’clock, he thought
