Cotillion

Chapter III

Shortly before seven o’clock that evening, at about the moment when Miss Charing entered the Saloon to receive the proposals of two of her cousins, a hired post-chaise and pair drew up before the Blue Boar, a small but excellent hostelry situated rather more than a mile from Arnside House, where four roads joined. The young gentleman who alighted from the chaise must have been recognized at sight by the discerning as a Pink of the Ton, for although his judgment, which, in all matters of Fashion, was extremely nice, had forbidden him to travel into the country arrayed in the long-tailed coat of blue superfine, the pantaloons of delicate yellow, and the tasselled Hessian boots which marked him in the Metropolis as a veritable Tulip, or Bond Street Beau, none but a regular Dash, patronizing the most exclusive of tailors, could have presented himself in so exquisitely moulded a riding-coat, such peerless breeches, or such effulgent top-boots. The white tops of these, which incontrovertibly proclaimed his dandyism, were hidden by the folds of a very long and voluminous driving-coat, lined with silk, embellished with several shoulder-capes, and secured across his chest by a double row of very large buttons of mother of pearl. Upon his brown locks, carefully anointed with Russian oil, and cropped a la Titus, he wore a high-crowned beaver-hat, set at an exact angle between the rakish and the precise; on his hands were gloves of York tan; under one arm he carried a malacca cane. When he strolled into the inn, and shed the somewhat deceptive driving-coat, he was seen to be a slender young gentleman, of average height and graceful carriage. His countenance was un-arresting, but amiable; and a certain vagueness characterized his demeanour. When he relinquished his coat, his hat, his cane, and his gloves into the landlord’s hands, a slight look of anxiety was in his face, but as soon as a penetrating glance at the mirror had satisfied him that the high points of his shirt-collar were uncrumpled, and the intricacies of a virgin cravat no more disarranged than a touch would set to rights, the anxious look disappeared, and he was able to turn his attention to other matters.

The landlord, who had greeted him with a mixture of the deference due to a wealthy man of fashion, and the tolerant affection of one who, having been acquainted with him since the days when he wore nankeens and frilled shirts, knew all his failings, said for the second time: “Well, sir, this is a pleasant surprise, I’m sure! Quite a period it is since we’ve seen you in these parts! You’ll be on your way to Arnside, I don’t doubt.”

“Yes,” acknowledged the traveller. “Dashed nearly dished myself up, what’s more! Devilish early hours my great-uncle keeps, Pluckley. Fortunate thing: remembered it a mile back! Better dine here.”

The Blue Boar was not much in the habit of catering for the Polite World, but the landlord, secure in the knowledge that his helpmate, a north-country woman, was a notable housewife, received this announcement with unruffled equanimity. “Well, sir, I won’t say you’re wrong,” he remarked, with the wink of the privileged. “A most respected gentleman, Mr. Penicuik, I’m sure, but they do say as he don’t keep what I’d call a liberal table, nor, by what I hear from Mr. Stobhill, he don’t let the bottle go round like it should. Now, if you’ll step into the coffee-room, sir, you’ll find a good fire, and no one but yourself likely to come in. I’ll just make so bold as to fetch you in a glass of as soft a sherry as you’ll find this side of London-town, and while you’re drinking it my rib shall toss you up some mushroom fritters, by way of a relish—for you know we don’t have any call for French kickshawses here, not in the ordinary way, and aside from the fritters there’s only a serpent of mutton, and one of our goose-and-turkey pies, which I’ll be bound you’ve not forgot, and a bit of crimped cod, and a curd pudding, if you should fancy it.”

This modest repast being approved, Mr. Pluckley then withdrew; and within a short space of time the covers were laid in the coffee-room, and the guest sat down to an excellent dinner, the bare skeleton, which had been described by the landlord, being reinforced by oysters in batter, some Flemish soup, and, as side-dishes, some calf’s fry, and a boiled tongue with turnips. A bottle of burgundy, which had formed part of a particularly successful run, washed the meal down; and the whole was rounded off by some cognac, the young gentleman of fashion waving aside, with a horrified shudder, an offer of port.

It was while he was sipping this revivifying cordial that the landlord, who had lingered in the coffee-room to regale him with various items of local gossip, was drawn from his side by the sound of an opening door. Informing his guest that he would take care no ungenteel person intruded upon him, Mr. Pluckley departed. A murmur of voices penetrated confusedly to the coffee-room, and in another minute Mr. Pluckley reappeared, looking very much astonished, and saying: “Well, sir, and little did I think who it might be, at this hour of the evening, and the snow beginning to fall, and her coming on foot, without a servant nor nothing! It’s Miss Charing, sir!”

“Eh?” said the willowy gentleman, slightly startled.

The landlord held the door wide, and Miss Charing, a serviceable if not beautiful cloak huddled about her form, appeared on the threshold, and there halted. The strings of her hood were tied tightly under her chin, and the resulting frill of drab woollen-cloth unbecomingly framed a face whose nose was pink-tipped with cold. There was nothing romantic about Miss Charing’s appearance, but her entrance would not have shamed a Siddons. “You!” she uttered, in accents of loathing. “I might have known it!”

The Honourable Frederick Standen was faintly puzzled. It seemed to him that Miss Charing was both surprised and displeased to see him. He expostulated. “Dash it, Kitty, I was invited!”

“I thought better of you!” said Miss Charing tragically.

“You did?” said Mr. Standen, sparring for wind. His gaze, not wholly unlike that of a startled hare, alighted on the table; he fancied he could perceive a glimmer of light. “Yes, but you know what my uncle is!” he said. “Dines at five, or he did when I was last down here! Nothing for it but to snatch a mouthful on the way.”

“That!” said Miss Charing, with withering scorn. “I don’t care where you dine, Freddy, but that you should have come to Arnside gives me a very poor notion of you, let me tell you! Not that I ever had anything else, for you’re as bad as Dolph—worse!”

Mr. Standen, considering the matter, was moved to expostulate again. “No, really, Kitty! Pitching it too strong!” he said. “The poor fellow’s queer in his attic!” It occurred to him that Mr. Pluckley’s interested presence might with advantage be dispensed with. He indicated this briefly and simply, and Mr. Pluckley regretfully withdrew.

Miss Charing, who shared with her governess a taste for romantic fiction, toyed with the idea of remaining (a statue of persecuted virtue) by the door, but succumbed to the lure of a fire. Seating herself on the settle beside it, she untied the strings of her cloak, pushed back the hood from her ruffled curls, and stretched benumbed hands to the blaze.

“I’ll tell you what it is!” offered Mr. Standen. “You’re cold! Put you in a miff! Have some brandy!”

Miss Charing declined the invitation contemptuously. She added: “You need not have put yourself to the trouble of travelling all the way from London. You have quite wasted your time, I assure you!”

“Well, that don’t surprise me,” returned Freddy. “I rather thought it was a hum. Uncle Matthew pretty stout?”

“No, he is not! Dr. Fenwick said he could be cured of his stomach trouble by magnetism and warm ale, but it only did him a great deal of harm. At least, he said it did, and also that we were all in a plot to kill him.”

“Gout bad too?” enquired Mr. Standen anxiously.

“Very bad!”

“You know, I think I made a mistake to come,” confided Mr. Standen. “Not at all sure I won’t rack up for the night here, and go back to London in the morning. The thing is, the old gentleman don’t like me above half, and if his gout’s plaguing him I’d as lief not meet him. Besides, he won’t let me bring my man, and I find it devilish awkward! It ain’t my neckcloths, of course: never let Icklesham do more than hand ’em to me! It’s my boots. The last time I stayed here the fellow who cleaned ’em left a dashed great thumb-mark on one of them! I’m not bamming, Kitty! Gave me a nasty turn, I can tell you.”

“You might as well go back to London now,” said Kitty. “You made a great mistake to come! In fact, when I think of your circumstances I am quite shocked that you should have done so!”

“That’s all very well,” objected Mr. Standen, “but I don’t like travelling at night. Besides, this ain’t a posting-house, and I need a change. Yes, and now I come to think of it, what have my circumstances to say to anything?”

“You are as rich as—as—I can’t remember the name!” said Miss Charing crossly.

“I expect you mean Golden Ball,” said Freddy. “And I ain’t.”

“No, I do not! I mean somebody out of history—at least, I think he was, because when you wish to signify that a person is excessively wealthy you say he is as rich as—as him!”

“Well, I don’t!” said Freddy. “Never heard of the fellow! Nice cake I should make of myself if I went around talking about people out of history! Anyone would think you’d been in the sun, Kitty!”

“Sun? It is snowing!” cried Miss Charing.

“In that case, I’ll be dashed if I go back to London tonight,” said Freddy. “Not that that’s what I meant, but never mind! What’s more, I ain’t as wealthy as all that.”

“You are wealthy enough not to be obliged to offer for an heiress!” said Miss Charing, darting a glance of scorn at him.

“Well, I ain’t going to offer for an heiress,” said Freddy patiently. A thought occurred to him; in some concern he added: “Kitty, you haven’t got this infectious complaint, have you? Don’t know what it is, but it goes very much about, they tell me. M’sister Meg was in bed a sennight with it.”

“Freddy!” exclaimed Miss Charing, staring fixedly at him. “Don’t you know why Uncle Matthew sent for you?”

“Said he had something important to say to me. I thought it was a hum!”

“But if you came at all why did you not come yesterday?” Kitty demanded.

“Been out of town,” explained Mr. Standen.

“Oh, Freddy, I have wronged you!” uttered Kitty, genuinely remorseful. “But George, and Hugh, and Dolph all knew, and so of course I supposed you must too!”

“Eh?” ejaculated Freddy, startled. “You don’t mean to tell me they are at Arnside?”

“Yes, yes, they have been there since yesterday, and it is too dreadful, Freddy!”

“Good God, I should rather think so!” he agreed, much struck. “Why, if I hadn’t met you, I should have walked smash into them! You know, Kitty, the old gentleman must be in pretty queer stirrups! Unless he’s been on the mop, and that don’t seem likely. Well, what I mean is, he must be dicked in the nob to want such a set of gudgeons at Arnside! Mind, I don’t say Hugh ain’t a clever fellow: daresay he is; but you can’t deny he’s a dead bore!”

“Yes, he is!” agreed Miss Charing, with enthusiasm. “And, which is worse, he’s a saintly bore, Freddy!”

“Devilish!” agreed Freddy. “Know what he said to me the last time he took a bolt to the village? Why, just because he saw me coming away from the Great-Go, he started to moralize about the evils of gaming! Seemed to think I was a regular leg, which, as I told him, is a dashed silly thing to think, because for one thing it ain’t at all the thing, and for another you have to be a curst clever fellow to be a leg! What’s brought him to Arnside?”

“Uncle Matthew,” replied Kitty. “He is making his Will!”

“He is? You don’t mean he’s had notice to quit at last?”

“Of course he has not, but he chooses to think so!” said Kitty.

“No need to put yourself in a pucker,” said Freddy kindly. “Been saying it any time these past ten years! Who’s he leaving his money-bags to?”

“To me—upon conditions!”

“What, nothing to Jack?” exclaimed Freddy. “If that don’t beat the Dutch! Not but what I’m dashed glad to hear it, Kitty! Felicitate you!”

“Yes,” said Miss Charing, “but it is on condition that I marry one or other of his great-nephews, and that, Freddy, is why you were invited to Arnside! You are to offer for me!”

The effect of this pronouncement was quite as great as she could have desired, and, possibly, rather greater. Mr. Standen, who had disposed his slender person gracefully in a chair on the other side of the fireplace, was jerked suddenly upright. An expression of the most profound horror transformed his amiable countenance; his eyes showed an alarming tendency to start from his head; and he said, in a voice approaching a squeak: “What?”

Miss Charing was betrayed into an unromantic giggle.

Mr. Standen looked suspiciously at her. “Now, listen to me, Kitty!” he said severely. “If you’re trying to roast me—No, my God! So that was it! I might have guessed as much! Well, if I don’t serve him trick-and-tie, for this—!”

“Who?” demanded Kitty.

“Jack,” said Mr. Standen. “Mind, I thought it was a dashed smoky thing! In fact, I settled it with myself I wouldn’t come. Well, what I mean is, I ain’t such a green ’un as to fall into one of Jack’s take-ins! But, you know, Kit, this is a devilish business! Why, if I hadn’t chanced to meet you I should have found myself dished-up! You might have warned me, my dear girl!”

Miss Charing paid no heed to this, but fixed her eyes most earnestly upon his face, and asked: “Did Jack tell you to come?”

“That’s it. Met him at Limmer’s last night. Wearing a coat I didn’t like. Told me he let Scott make it for him. Pity! Made him look like a military man.”

“Never mind Jack’s coat!” interrupted Kitty. “What did he say to you?”

“Well, that’s it. Said he was tired of Weston’s cut, which made me think he must be a trifle above par. Well, I put it to you, Kit, that’s all you can think when a fellow says a thing like that!”

“What did he say about—about me?” demanded Kitty.

“Didn’t say anything about you. Asked me if I’d had a summons from the old gentleman. Told him I had, and he said I should on no account stay away. That’s why I settled not to come. Kept his mouth as prim as a pie, but you know the way he laughs with his eyes!”

The very thought of the way Mr. Westruther laughed with his eyes drew a deep sigh from Miss Charing. “Yes,” she said wistfully. For a moment she seemed inclined to sink into a reverie, but the melting mood was not of long duration. Once again Mr. Standen became the object of her penetrating gaze. “Did Jack—know—why he was sent for?” she asked.

“Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter he knew!” said Freddy. “That’s why he ain’t here, of course.”

Miss Charing stiffened. “You think so?” she said coldly.

“Not a doubt of it!” responded Freddy. “I must say, I call it a shabby thing to do! Might have told me what was in the wind. That’s Jack all over, though!”

Miss Charing accepted this unflattering speech meekly enough, but said, lifting her chin a little: “For my part, I am very glad he has not come. I should have thought very poorly of him had he obeyed such a command.”

“No fear of that,” said Freddy. “Very likely to have put up his back.”

“Yes, perhaps that was it!” said Kitty, brightening. “He is very proud, isn’t he, Freddy?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call him proud, precisely. Gets up on his high ropes now and then, but he ain’t one of your high sticklers.”

Miss Charing meditated for some moments in silence. “I did not wish him to come,” she said at last, “but Uncle Matthew is excessively vexed that he has not. It is the most absurd thing, but I am persuaded that Uncle Matthew had not the least notion of my marrying anyone else. He was as mad as fire when only Dolph and the Rattrays came to Arnside.”

“Anyone would be,” agreed Freddy. “Can’t think what possessed the old gentleman to invite ’em!” He added modestly: “Or me either, for that matter.”

“He has taken a nonsensical notion into his head that he must not favour any of you above another. And you know what he is, Freddy! Once he has said a thing he will never unsay it! I daresay it may not have occurred to him that Jack would not even come! It would serve him right if I said I would marry Dolph!”

“You aren’t going to tell me Dolph offered for you?” said Freddy incredulously.

“Yes, he did. If I hadn’t been so angry I must have gone into whoops. Poor Dolph! he looked so miserable, and of course I knew he only did it because that odious woman compelled him!”

“Now I see it all!” announced Freddy, nodding his head several times. “Accounts for it! Told you I’d settled not to come, didn’t I? Well, it was Aunt Dolphinton who made me change my mind! If I hadn’t met her this morning, I wouldn’t have!”

Kitty looked very much surprised. “Lady Dolphinton made you come? No, how should she do that? She cannot have wished it!”

“Well, that’s it. Didn’t wish it at all. I was in Bond Street, just on the toddle, you know, when out she popped from Hookham’s Library, and stood there staring at me. Made my bow, of course: nothing else to be done! Nasty moment, I can tell you, because I was wearing a new waistcoat, and I’m not sure that it ain’t a thought too dashing. But it wasn’t that. Not,” he added, considering the matter, “that I feel quite easy about it. Liked it when Weston showed it to me, but as soon as I put it on—”

“Oh, Freddy, do stop talking about coats and waistcoats!” begged Miss Charing, quite out of patience. “What did Lady Dolphinton say?”

“Said, So you haven’t gone to Arnside! Silly thing to say, really, because there I was, in the middle of Bond Street. So I said, No, I hadn’t gone; and she asked me whether I meant to go, and I said I rather fancied not. And that’s when I took a notion she was playing some kind of an undergame, because she gave me a hoaxing sort of a smile, and said I was wise not to go, for it was all a hum, or some such thing. Seemed devilish anxious to discover whether Jack had gone, too. Looked like a cat at a cream-pot when I told her he hadn’t. Playing the concave-suit, that’s what I thought! Well, dash it, Kit, I may not be one of these clever fellows, talking about a lot of dead people out of history, but a man can’t be on the town and not smell out a bubble! Stands to reason! So I came to see for myself what was in the wind. Mistake, of course, but there’s no harm done, as it chances. All the same, Jack served me a damned backhanded turn, and so I shall tell him! A pretty fix I should have been in if I hadn’t met you!”

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Kitty. “Uncle Matthew cannot compel you to offer for me!”

Mr. Standen looked dubious. “You think he can’t? Not sure you’re right there. Fact is, I’m frightened to death of the old gentleman! Always was! I don’t say I wouldn’t have made a push to come off clear, but it would have been dashed awkward. No, the more I think of it the more I think it was a fortunate circumstance I met you. Seemed to me rather a queer start when you walked in, but I’m glad you did, very!” This reflection had the effect of causing a problem which had for some time been floating in a rather nebulous way at the back of his mind to assume a more concrete form. He said suddenly: “Come to think of it, it is a queer start! What brings you here, Kit? No wish to offend you, but not quite the thing, you know!”

Her lip trembled. She replied with a catch in her voice: “I am running away!”

“Oh, running away!” said Mr. Standen, satisfied.

“I could not bear it another instant!” declared Kitty, gripping her hands together in her lap.

“Very understandable,” said Freddy sympathetically. “Most uncomfortable house I ever stayed in! Devilish bad cook, too. Not surprised the old gentleman has stomach trouble. Quite right to run away.”

“It wasn’t that! Only when Uncle Matthew put me in that dreadful position, and Dolph offered for me, and then Hugh —Hugh!—I wished I had never been born!”

Mr. Standen had no difficulty in appreciating this. He said with considerable feeling: “By Jupiter, yes! Not to be wondered at. I wouldn’t have Hugh, if I were you, Kit. You’d find him a dead bore. Handsome fellow, of course, but too mackerel-backed, if you ask me. Never saw anyone make a worse bow. Offered to teach him once, but all he did was to look down his nose, and say it was very obliging of me, but he wouldn’t trouble me. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Only did it because everyone knows he’s a cousin of mine.”

“Oh, he is the stiffest thing in nature!” declared Kitty. “But I didn’t care for that! Only he said he would marry me because if he didn’t I should be left d-destitute upon the w-world, and it is all out of chivalry, and not in the least because he loves m-me, or wants to inherit Uncle MMatthew’s fortune!”

Mr. Standen, perceiving that her eyes were swimming in tears, made a praiseworthy attempt to avert a scene the mere threat of which was already making him acutely uncomfortable. “Well, no need to cry over that!” he said. “Never heard such a tale! Bag of moonshine, that’s what it is! Lord, though, to think of Hugh’s being such a Captain Sharp!”

“George said it too. And Hugh means to educate me, and he says there is nothing I can do to earn my own bread, and they all of them seemed to think I should be glad to marry one of you, and I ran out of the room, and then what must Fish do but say that it was romantic! Romantic! It was too much, Freddy! I made up my mind I would just show them; So I stole the housekeeping-money, and I came here, because I know the Ashford stage stops here, and from Ashford, you know, I can get to London.”

“Oh!” said Freddy. “Very good notion, I daresay. At least—No wish to throw a damper, but what are you going to do there?”

“That’s just it!” said Kitty, her face much flushed, and large tear-drops trickling down her cheeks. “I was too angry to think of that, but I thought of it when I was walking along the lane, and I don’t know what I’m going to do, or where I am to stay, for I haven’t a friend in the world, and every word Hugh said was true!”

“No, no!” said Freddy feebly.

Miss Charing, after an abortive search for her handkerchief, began to mop her face with a corner of her cloak.

Mr. Standen’s dismay gave place to shocked disapproval. “Here, Kitty, I say! no!” he protested. “Take mine!”

Miss Charing accepted, with a loud sob, the delicate handkerchief held out to her, and blew her small nose with determination. Mr. Standen, reflecting that he had several handkerchiefs in his portmanteau, applied himself to the task of consolation. “No sense in crying,” he said. “Think of some shift or other! Bound to!”

This well-meant suggestion caused Kitty’s tears to flow faster. “I have been thinking and thinking, and there is nothing I can do! And, oh, I would rather die than go back to Arnside!”

At this moment, an interruption occurred. The landlord, not unnaturally consumed with curiosity, had hit upon an excuse for re-entering the coffee-room. He came in bearing a steaming bowl of rum-punch, which he set down on the table, saying: “Your punch, sir. You did say nine o’clock, sir, didn’t you? Just on nine now, sir!”

Mr. Standen could not recall that he had said anything at all, and he was about to repudiate the punch when he realized that it was clearly the moment for him to fortify himself. He was thankful to perceive that Kitty had stopped crying, and had turned her face away. He ventured to offer her a glass of ratafia. She shook her head silently, and the landlord, setting two glasses down beside the bowl, said: “Perhaps Miss would fancy just a sip of punch, to keep the cold out. Snowing quite fast, it is, though not laying, sir. I hope no bad news from Mr. Penicuik’s, sir?”

Freddy, who had been hurriedly inventing a tale to account for Miss Charing’s unconventional presence in the Blue Boar, now rose to the occasion with considerable address. “Lord, no! Nothing of that sort!” he said airily. “Stupid looby of a coachman forgot his orders, that’s all! Ought to have fetched Miss Charing an hour ago. She’s been visiting: obliged to walk back to Arnside. Started to snow, so she had to seek shelter.”

If the landlord thought poorly of a story which featured a host so lost to propriety as to permit an unattached damsel to leave his house at dusk, on foot and unescorted, and which left out of account the modest carpet-bag, at present reposing in the passage outside the coffee-room, Kitty at least had no fault to find with it. No sooner had Mr. Pluckley departed, than she turned to look admiringly at Freddy, and to thank him for his kind offices. “I had no notion you could be so clever!” she told him.

Mr. Standen blushed, and disclaimed. “Made it all up beforehand,” he explained. “Daresay you wouldn’t think of it, but the fellow was bound to start nosing out your business. Oughtn’t to be out alone, you know. Ought to have brought the Fish with you.”

“But, Freddy, you must see that I couldn’t run away to London if I brought Fish! She would never consent!”

“Mustn’t run away to London,” said Freddy. “Been thinking about that, and it won’t do. Pity, but there it is!”

“You don’t feel that there might be something I could do to support myself?” asked Miss Charing, with a last flicker of hope. “Of course, I don’t wish to starve, but do you think I should? Truthfully, Freddy?”

Keeping his inevitable reflections to himself, Mr. Standen lied manfully. “Sure of it!” he said.

“Not if I became a chambermaid!” said Kitty, suddenly inspired. “Hugh says I am too young to be a housekeeper, but I could be a chambermaid!”

Mr. Standen brought her firmly back to earth. “No sense in that. Might as well stay at Arnside. Better, in fact.”

“Yes, I suppose I might,” she said despondently. “Only I would like so much to escape! I do try not to be ungrateful, but oh, Freddy, if you knew what it is like, keeping house for Uncle Matthew, and reading to him, and pouring out his horrid draughts, and never speaking to anyone but him and Fish! It makes me wish he never had adopted me!”

“Must be devilish,” nodded Mr. Standen, ladling punch into one of the glasses. “Can’t think why he did adopt you. Often puzzled me.”

“Yes, it used to puzzle me too, but Fish thinks that he formed a lasting passion for my mama.”

“Sort of thing she would think,” remarked Freddy. “If you ask me, he never formed a lasting passion for anyone but himself. I mean, look at him!”

“Yes, but I do feel she may be right,” Kitty insisted. “He hardly ever speaks of her, except when he says I am not nearly as pretty as she was, but he has her likeness. He keeps it in his desk, and he showed it to me once, when I was a little girl.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have believed it!” said Freddy, apparently convinced.

“No, but I fancy it was so. Because George, you know, thought I was Uncle Matthew’s daughter. Hugh said that he never did so, but I have a strong notion he did!”

“Shouldn’t think so at all,” said Freddy. “George might, because he’s a gudgeon. Daresay Dolph might, but nobody else would. In fact, Dolph wouldn’t either, because he don’t think anything. If you was my uncle’s daughter, he wouldn’t behave so shabbily. Wouldn’t want to leave his money to one of us, either.”

“N-no. I daresay he might wish me to marry one of his great-nephews, but he wouldn’t cut me off without a penny if I refused, would he?”

“He don’t mean to do that?” exclaimed Freddy, shocked.

She nodded, and gave a rather watery sniff into his handkerchief. “Yes, he does, and of course I quite see that I can never hope to form an eligible connection if I’m to be a pauper. It makes me feel horridly low!”

“What you need, Kit, is a drop of something to put some heart into you,” said Freddy decidedly. “If you won’t take some ratafia—mind, I don’t say I blame you!—you’d better have a mouthful of this. It ain’t the right thing, but who’s to know?”

Miss Charing accepted a half-filled glass, and sipped cautiously. The pungency of the spirit was inclined to catch the back of her throat, but the sweetness and the unmistakeable tang of lemon-juice reassured her. “I like it,” she said.

“Yes, but don’t go telling my uncle, or the Fish, that you’ve been drinking punch with me,” he warned her.

She assured him that she would not; and since she was now quite warm, and was finding the settle uncomfortable, joined him at the table, and sat there, sipping her punch, and brooding over her unhappy circumstances. Freddy, who was grappling with thoughts of his own, rather absentmindedly refilled both glasses. A frown began to gather on his brow. He broke the silence by demanding suddenly: “Who’ll inherit the ready if you don’t marry one of us, Kit?”

“Uncle Matthew says he shall leave it to the Foundling Hospital,” replied Kitty. “All of it!”

“He does, does he? Seems to me Dolph ain’t the only one who’s queer in his attic!” said Mr. Standen. He stared fixedly at the play of the candlelight on the golden liquid in his glass. “Wonder if Jack knows that?” he said, in a ruminative tone.

“You may depend upon it that he does, for I am sure Uncle Matthew would not tell George and Hugh more than he has told Jack. And I am excessively happy to think that it has not weighed with him!”

“Wonder if he’s playing a deep game?” said Mr. Standen, pursuing his own meditations. “No saying what might be in his head: a curst rum touch, Jack! Shouldn’t have thought he’d whistle a fortune down the wind, though. Rather fancy he counted the old gentleman’s rolls of soft his own. Never knew such a fellow for wasting the ready! Played wily beguiled with his own fortune.” He encountered a startled look of enquiry from Miss Charing, and added succinctly: “Gamester. Tulip of the Turf. Seems to have come off all right so far, but m’father says he’ll end under the hatches. Very downy one, m’father!” He dwelt for a moment on the percipience of Lord Legerwood, while Miss Charing eyed him with hostility. Refreshing himself with some more punch, he said: “May be shamming it. Don’t care to have his hand forced. Must know you wouldn’t take Dolph or Hugh. Must know I ain’t hanging out for a rich wife. Means to steer the old gentleman to Point Non-Plus.” He drained his glass, and set it down. Still more profound thoughts deepened the frown on his brow. “Same time— may have come about again. Fresh as ever. Don’t need the ready. Don’t want to be married. Drop the handkerchief when he chooses.”

“Drop—Drop—?” stammered Kitty. “Do you mean—he thinks I w-would pick it up w-whenever—Oh!”

Much confused, Mr. Standen begged pardon. “Thinking to myself!” he explained.

She paid no heed to this, but said fiercely: “Do you mean that?”

“No, no! That is—couldn’t blame him, Kit! Handsome phiz, you know—devil of a Corinthian—never at a stand! Daresay you don’t know it, but the fact is any number of caps set at him! High-fliers, too. Queer creatures, females,” mused Mr. Standen, shaking his head. “Fellow’s only got to be a rake to have ’em all dangling after him. Silly, really, because it stands to reason—Well, never mind that!”

“Good gracious, Freddy, as though I was not well-aware that Jack is a shocking flirt!” said Kitty untruthfully, but with spirit. “I have not the least doubt that he flirts with all the prettiest ladies in London! Which makes it so particularly stupid and—and diverting of Uncle Matthew to suppose that he wished to offer for me! Indeed, I can’t imagine why anyone should think he would do so. I should be astonished to learn that he regards me as anything other than a dowdy schoolgirl!”

“Yes, I should be too,” agreed the Job’s comforter on the other side of the table.

Miss Charing swallowed another mouthful of punch. A gentle glow was spreading through her veins, dispelling the melancholy which had possessed her. It would have been too much to have said that she was restored to happiness, but she no longer despaired. A certain exhilaration infused her brain, which seemed all at once to be able quite easily to master difficulties that, a few minutes before, had appeared so insoluble. She sat bolt upright in her chair, staring straight ahead, the fingers of one hand tightening unconsciously round her tumbler. Mr. Standen, glad to be left in peace to wrestle with the second of the problems confronting him, meditatively rubbed the rim of his quizzing-glass up and down the bridge of his nose.

“Freddy!” said Miss Charing suddenly, turning her expressive eyes towards him.

He gave a slight start, and let his quizzing-glass fall. “Thinking of something else!” he excused himself.

“Freddy, you are quite sure you don’t want to marry me, aren’t you?”

He looked a little alarmed, for she spoke with a degree of urgency which made him feel uneasy. “Yes,” he said. He added apologetically: “Very fond of you, Kit, always was! Thing is, not a marrying man!”

“Then, Freddy, will you be so very obliging as to be betrothed to me?” said Miss Charing breathlessly.