'That tragical hoarseness would lead me to conclude something. Eh! has that Robin been chirping out her fancies? And do you mean to say that you are struck all of a heap by the awful discovery of a boarding-school mystery?'
'It is naturally distressing to find you acting such a part.'
'Then I am afraid you have a good deal to go through in the course of your life. If every little flirtation on the part of your Geschwister is to produce this effect, there won't be much left of you by the time it comes to Stella.'
'What meaning do you attach to the words 'little flirtation?''
'When the head of the family puts the question in that solemn tone, how is it to be answered? Bless me, Blunderbore, such a countenance can only proceed from being smitten yourself! To be sure, when there was only one girl you ever spoke to, it was no wonder. Poor old fellow! I'd never have poached on your manor, but how was I to imagine a pillar of the house giving way to such levities?'
'This is mere bravado, Edgar,' was the grave answer, in a tone not disconcerted, but full of repression, and with a pale but steady countenance. 'Gloss it over as you will, a correspondence such as you have begun is unjustifiable. It risks damaging for ever the prospects, at once not only of-of the object-but those of your little sisters.'
'O Felicissimo mio, how green a spot is Bexley! As though secrets and mysteries were not the elixir of life to the boarding-school.'
'Have you ever considered what a discovery must involve?'
'I need not, it seems, since you had not the sense to box that child's ears for a meddlesome tell-tale. Did the scene equal Madame's performance?'
'You do not imagine that I mentioned it.'
'Oh! The revered prop of the state soars so far above my head that I did not know what he might regard as his duty.'
'You shall know it now, Edgar. There are two choices. If you are really engaged to this young lady' (Edgar made a nod of impatient scornful acquiescence, but certainly of acquiescence), 'then ask her honourably from her friends, and let whatever you do be open! Otherwise, give it up as an impossible imprudence, but drop all attempt at what is clandestine. Unless you do one or other of these, I warn you that I shall speak to Miss Pearson.'
'If you were a reasonable and experienced paterfamilias, instead of only a poor conscientious over-harassed prig of a boy, with more brothers and sisters than he knows what to do with, I'll tell you, in candid unprejudice, what you would do. Just let it alone! There are as many of such little affairs going as there are midges in a sunbeam; and they never do any one any harm, unless the higher powers make an unadvised hubbub.'
'Am I to understand that as an avowal that you know yourself to be trifling?'
'I know nothing about it. I don't live in the heroics, like some of my friends. In the rural seclusion of Bexley I saw a pretty lively girl, who, not to put too fine a point upon it, made quite as much up to the romantic young artist as ever the young artist did to her. Of course, there was an exchange of prettinesses, and life on either side became a blank when she was immured at Brompton, and the only solace left was the notes that so outrage your and Bobbie's united sense of propriety.'
'And what is to follow?'
'Is it to lead to?' he corrected, with a mimicry of Wilmet's tone. 'That depends. If you make the explosion, I shall have to rise to the occasion-keep the slip-knot ready and patent, and as soon as I get my head above water, have a wife and family on my back to keep me down, and hinder me from coming to your rescue. If not-why, it will take its chance, and we shall have a reasonable chance of trying whether we get tired of one another-the best thing that could happen to us, by the by-though she is such a saucy little darling, that were that picture of mine painted, I should be fool enough to marry her to-morrow.'
'And why-may I ask-seeing these things so clearly, did you draw the poor child into an engagement!
Edgar shrugged his shoulders. 'You had better ask why she drew me. If you didn't know it before, my dear Felix, ''Tis human natur to be fools.''
'Allowing it to be folly, you do not mean to persist?'
'As if a poor fellow must always have a meaning! Life is not worth having if one is to be always so awfully in earnest.'
'I have the misfortune to be in earnest,' said Felix, with the formality of one past patience, but resolved to keep his temper in hand, 'when I warn you, that if I find that this intercourse is continued, unless you choose to ask her properly of her father, it will be my duty to let Miss Pearson know.
'So be it,' was the answer, in a tone of half mocking, half compassionate submission, that was more provoking than all, except for the sudden change to the gay kindliness that followed, as Edgar threw aside his own affairs, to laugh over Ferdinand Travis's honest simplicity of adoration of Alda and all her household, declaring that it had been as much for his delight, as to be rid of him, that he himself had devised that commission of the luncheon. 'What a spread it will be!' Edgar chuckled to himself; 'and how it will be thrown away on the present company! not that there ever was a man who wanted it more!' he added, as he saw how white his brother's face was. 'You've been and got a chill!'
Felix did not deny it; and if his unsophisticated palate did not appreciate all that Ferdinand had ordered on the principle that nothing could be too good for him either in his individual capacity or as Alda's brother, he at least submitted to what his two companions required of him in the way of hot soup, and even of one glass of wine, before he grew restive, and insisted on carrying the head that their solicitude had succeeded in rendering heated and flushed to burning pitch, to do the business in the City that always sprang up whenever any one had to go to town.
Edgar bade him adieu; and the faithful Ferdinand drove him wherever he had to go, and finally to Kensington Palace Gardens, where he was ushered into the drawing-room, to find Marilda, resolved upon unconsciousness, but only succeeding in a kind of obstreperous cordiality and good will, which, together with the hot room, made him quite dizzy; and his answers were so much at random, that he sent Fulbert to an examination at Cambridge, and Clement prospecting in Australia. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Underwood made their appearance; but when Felix spoke of getting a cab, Marilda said the carriage was ordered. Then Alda was explicit about the boxes that were to follow, but on the whole she was behaving very prettily and unobtrusively. Marilda kissed her warmly, and detained Felix a moment to say, 'This will blow over, and then she will come back, unless things have settled themselves better. If I can do any good, write to me.'
So Alda quitted her adopted home; but the change might be lightened to her by being handed out of the carriage at the station by a military-looking figure, who announced that he wanted to see a fellow at Aldershot, and meant to dine there. It was not his fault that he got out at Farnborough.
CHAPTER XVI. THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT
'Peace, brother, be not exquisite,
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;
For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief?'
MILTON.
Wilmet was so devoted to Alda and her hopes and fears, that she let Felix escape with less reproof than usual, for the cold that sat heavily upon him after the last day's chill. He did not give way to it. There might have been some temptation to sit over the fire if Geraldine had been alone there; but Alda, when Wilmet was out of reach, engrossed Cherry's ears with descriptions of her feelings, and cravings for sympathy in her suspense, treating every other subject as futile, and the interruption of the children's lessons as an insult. No one might talk of anybody but Ferdinand; and Cherry did not wonder that Felix looked wearied and harassed, and always betrayed some anxiety to come first into possession of the morning post. One day, nearly a fortnight after his visit to London, he called Wilmet away from the breakfast table into the sitting-room: 'Wilmet,' he said, 'I must go and see Miss Pearson before school hours.'
'You! Is there anything the matter with Alice?' asked Wilmet, startled at his tone.
'Had they-had you-any notion of anything between her and Edgar?'
'No! Miss Pearson has taken to saying, 'My dear, your brothers are quite grown into young men,' and I thought she did not like the play.'
