False Colours

condemn her conduct in submitting to it, but as Mr Fancot seemed to be dead to all sense of propriety it was clearly useless to argue with him.

Several minutes later, sitting within the circle of Kit’s arm on the sofa lately occupied by Mrs Alperton, she said: “Why did you do it, Kit? It seems quite fantastic!”

“Of course it was—infamous as well! I beg your pardon, even though I can’t be sorry I did it. If I hadn’t come home that night, I might never have known you—or have known you only as Evelyn’s wife!”

This terrible thought caused him to tighten his arm involuntarily. She soothed him by softly kissing his cheek, and by saying, as soon as she had recovered her breath: “But I don’t think I should have married Denville. I had so very nearly made up my mind not to when I met you! Then I thought—being so grossly deceived—that perhaps I would, after all. But why was I deceived?”

“I did it to get Evelyn out of a scrape,” he confessed. “No one but Mama, and Fimber, and Challow knew I wasn’t in Vienna; and in the old days, when we were prime for any lark, we often did exchange identities, and only those who knew us very well ever found us out. So I was pretty certain I could carry it off. But when I took Evelyn’s place at that first dinner-party it was in the belief that it would be for one occasion only. If I had known that I should be obliged to maintain the hoax, nothing would have prevailed upon me to have yielded to Mama’s persuasions!”

Her eyes danced. “I knew it! She did persuade you!”

“Yes, but I must own,” said Kit scrupulously, “that I put the notion into her head—not in the least meaning to do so, but by saying, in a funning way, that if Evelyn didn’t come back in time to attend that party I should be obliged to take his place. Only to make her laugh! You see, I found her in the deuce of a pucker, because Evelyn was still absent, although he had been expected to return to London days earlier. I thought then that he had been delayed by some trifling hitch, so I consented to run that rig, though it went very much against the pluck with me. Can you understand, Cressy? The circumstances—the intolerable slight offered you if Evelyn failed to appear at a gathering assembled to make his acquaintance—!”

“Indeed I can!” she responded instantly. “I don’t blame you at all—I am even grateful to you for having spared me such a daunting humiliation! What did delay Evelyn?”

“I don’t know.”

She had been leaning against his shoulder, but she sat up at this. “You don’t know? But—Where is Evelyn?”

“I don’t know that either. That’s the devil of it!” he said frankly. “At the outset, I thought merely—not that he had forgotten his engagement in Mount Street, but that he had confused the date of it.”

“Very likely,” she agreed. “He does forget, you know! People joke him about his shocking memory, and I am acquainted with one hostess who makes it a rule to send him a reminder on the day of her party!” The rueful smile lit his eyes. “Yes, but that’s not it. He has been absent for too long. I think some accident befell him. That’s why I came home in such a bang. I can’t explain that to you, but we do know, each of us, when the other has suffered an injury. He knew it, a year ago, when I broke my leg—not the nature of the accident, but that I had sustained some hurt—and the express I sent him arrived only just in time to stop him posting off to Dover to board the next packet!”

“I remember,” she said. “Godmama said it was the uncomfortable part of being a twin! And you felt that?”

He frowned slightly. “Yes, I did. For several days, I—But it left me, that feeling, so completely that I wondered if my imagination had been playing me false. Something must have happened to him, but it wasn’t a fatal accident, and I don’t think he is any longer troubled in mind.”

“Ashe was when he steeled himself to make me an offer?” said Cressy, unable to resist temptation. “Ah, well! I have been for too long at my last prayers to feel the least surprise at that!”

“Yes, love, indeed!” agreed Mr Fancot, unhandsomely refusing the gambit. “So old cattish as you are!”

“Odious wretch!” Her brows drew together. “Yes, but I still don’t understand! Having so steeled himself, why did he go away at just that moment?”

“As far as we know,” replied Kit carefully, “he went to redeem from Lord Silverdale, who was said to be in Brighton, a brooch which my mama had lost to him at play.”

“Oh!” said Cressy doubtfully. “I see. That is,—yes, of course!”

“I should perhaps explain to you,” said Kit, in a kind voice, “that when Mama staked this bauble, for a cool monkey, she had forgotten that it was merely a copy of one of the pieces she sold years ago.” He added, as she gasped: “But pray don’t think that Evelyn went off to Brighton so hurriedly at her instigation! Nothing could be farther from the truth! She considers that to redeem, for the sum of £500, a brooch worth only a few guineas is grossly improvident.”

Cressy struggled with herself for a desperate moment, but her feelings overcame her, and she went into a peal of mirth. “Of course she does! I can almost hear her saying it! Oh, was there ever anyone so absurd and enchanting as Godmama?”

“Let me tell you, Miss Stavely,” said Kit severely, “that this is not a diverting story! Are you ever serious?”

“Yes, in my own home. Amongst the Fancots, never! No one could be! I have had a—a bubble of laughter inside me ever since I came to Ravenhurst, and you have no idea how much I enjoy it! And when I recall that Godmama told me once that you are the sober twin, and think of this crazy masquerade—”

“But it is perfectly true!” he assured her. “I am the sober twin! Mama would tell you that I am becoming prim and prosy, in fact, like my Uncle Brumby! “I couldn’t help myself: what else could I do than help Evelyn out of a scrape?”

There was a warm twinkle in her eyes, but she responded gravely: “Naturally you were obliged to do it. And did he recover the brooch?”

“We don’t know. He certainly went to Brighton, and as certainly returned here, for one night. He then sent Challow off to Hill Street, with all but his nightbag, saying that he would follow him within the next two days. He left Ravenhurst for an unknown destination, driving himself in his phaeton—and that is the last anyone has heard of him.”

She was startled, and exclaimed: “Good God, what can have happened to him? Can you discover no trace?”

“I haven’t tried to. When I came here it was with the intention of searching for him, not realizing what Challow lost no time in pointing out to me: that I’m hamstrung! So are we all. How can any of us set inquiries afoot for Evelyn while I am believed to be Evelyn?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. But is there nothing to be done?”

“Nothing that I can think of. I hoped I might be able perhaps to discover some clue from Mrs Alperton, but that scent was false, and leads only to Tunbridge Wells, where Challow has already hunted for him. Cressy, I haven’t thanked you for rescuing me from that harpy! I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t intervened—though I wouldn’t have exposed you to such a scene for the world! What made you come into the room?”

“Well, I heard her ranting at you. I own, I suspected something of the sort when Norton looked so meaningly at you, and was so insistent that he must speak to you alone!”

“Good God! Did you?” he exclaimed, surprised.

She smiled faintly. “Why, yes! I’m not quite without experience, you see. Oh, I don’t mean that I have associated with women like Mrs Alperton—though I did once have an encounter with a—a lady of easy virtue! But that was quite by accident, and Papa never knew anything about it. The thing was that when my mother died Papa wouldn’t permit any of my aunts to take charge of me, because he had always been so fond of me, and we were such good friends, ever since I can remember. So I stayed in Mount Street, with Miss Yate, who was my governess, and the dearest creature; and as soon as I was sixteen I came out of the schoolroom, and managed things, and looked after Papa—keeping him company, when he was at home, and comfortable, which he wasn’t, after Mama died. So I pretty soon grew to know about— oh, the things girls don’t, in general, know!” She laughed suddenly. “If I had been the