CHAPTER XIX

OUT OF DANGER

At last! At last! After what has seemed seventeen years of waiting, and after Evelyn and I both feel that our hairs must have turned at least as grey as Aunt Victoria's! At last we've got some good news. Mr. Lascelles is out of danger.

This morning the blue-and-white-print nurse condescended to tell us that the doctor says her patient—(hers, you know! Please don't all laugh too loud, or the echoes of your laughter may break the bubble of self-satisfaction in which that woman lives)—"her" patient has turned the corner, and is beginning to do remarkably well.

We were all so frightfully relieved that I could have fallen on nurse's neck and kissed even her.

"But he will be weak for some time still," she said, discouragingly, "and had better not see anybody."

"She might have waited until somebody had suggested rushing in to see him," as Nancy said.

Oh! I forgot to tell you that our married sister, Nancy—Mrs. Masters—has arrived home safely. Her home-coming, which was going to have been such a terrific bust-up, fell very flat, coming just after that thrilling evening of the capture of the German spy in our house and in the very middle of all our anxieties about poor Mr. Lascelles. Hardly any fuss was made.

We had to receive her, so to speak, in a whisper: because the house has to be kept so very quiet still.

It's quite a nuisance.

Now that we know he is going to get well quite soon, we don't mind grumbling at him. As for me, I can't think why I made such a donkey of myself and actually shed tears.... I suppose it was tiredness, really, after not being able to sleep for excitement. Thank goodness there was nobody but Evelyn to notice how silly and hysterical I got! She has plenty of other things to think about.

We'll now talk a little about the newly-marrieds!

You didn't suppose they were going to settle down at the Grange, did you? Oh, no. Captain Masters—that is Harry—whisked Nancy off to stay with him where he is billeted at some rooms right at the other end of the village.

Aunt Victoria says she thinks it is not at all a bad plan for a young couple to start married life in billets, because then they will not get any new-fangled, grand ideas about artistic furniture, and a great deal of space, and a servants' hall and a private sitting-room for every member of the family. She says they will start by getting quite accustomed to the hideous inconvenience of rooms, and that, in the first flush of being together, they won't notice where it is! Then, afterwards, whatever other place they go into of their own, they will look upon it as a kind of mixture of heaven and the "Ritz!"

(Later.)

Evelyn and I have just been to tea with Nancy in her newly-married billet and found her surrounded by stores of cardboard boxes and drifts of tissue paper—wedding present stuff. It has begun to roll in now from Harry's relations. Salt-cellars, mustard-pots, silver-framed calendars, silver photograph-frames, and all the usual sort of things. "His people have been very kind," she told us at tea, which we had out of the silver Queen Anne service on the oval tray, which is another wedding present. I thought the first day she arrived that being married had made no difference at all to Nancy. She looked as young and pink and bubbling over with jolliness as she had before, only if possible she was more jolly.

But to-day, at tea, I noticed that there was a change. She did talk a tiny bit as if there was a great gulf fixed, or at least a trench dug.

I could see Evelyn getting rather annoyed at this little "superior" way, these airs and graces; but I didn't mind them.

Everything wears off as long as the other people don't take any notice.

So I fully expect that Nancy's newly-married manner will wear off, too, including the little flourish with which she calls her husband's friends by their Christian names. "Edwin," if you please for Mr. Curtis (I consider Edwin the limit in names myself, but no doubt poor Evelyn would be only too thankful to have the chance to utter it!) and "Frank" for Mr. Lascelles!

"Have you seen Frank yet, Evelyn?" she asked, after we'd talked all about her new relations and the honeymoon, and how long it would be before Harry went out. Ages, he thought. If a man's told he may expect to go within the next fortnight, he's pretty safe in taking a house at home for eighteen months. All this we were told before Nancy went on to talk of Mr. Lascelles, as she blew out the fire of the silver spirit-kettle with the long, slender trumpet affair that made her look like a very pretty, golden-haired sort of archangel Gabriel. "Or does the dragon of a nurse still mount guard?"

"She still mounts guard," said Evelyn resignedly. "Never mind, as soon as he is convalescent she will go. We really have missed him, Nancy, almost as much as we miss you. He has been exactly like a brother."

"And a brother that one is so proud of, too," Nancy took up. "When I think of that minute mite hanging on to that German brute, who would have killed him, Edwin says, in another minute, I feel that the Victoria Cross wouldn't be too much for him, provided there were room for it to hang on his chest!"

"Oh, come! I say, he is not as small as that!" I couldn't help protesting, through a mouthful of Nancy's tea-cake. "You all talk as if, because a man isn't six foot three, you couldn't see him!"

"Why, Rattle! it was you that was always talking as if he were too small to be seen," said Nancy. "It was you who said that dancing with him would make you feel as if you had got hold of a flea!"

I felt the family blush creeping up from my collar to the roots of my hair as I said, "That was ages ago, that was before he was wounded, that was before he was so ill and nearly died."

"Oh; was that it?" said Nancy, smiling at Evelyn; I'm sure I don't know why. "Well, he is nearly convalescent now," she said consolingly. "I hear he is cross."

"Cross!" said Evelyn and I together. "Who has been bothering him?"

"Nobody," said Nancy. "The nurse said he was cross."

"I hate all nurses," I said fervently.

"Why, that is exactly what Mr. Lascelles said himself to the nurse," reported Nancy. "Simply because she wanted to wash his face, and then she told me it was an excellent sign, and that he would soon be well."

"I should be glad," said Evelyn, "to have a talk with the little creature once more!"

She doesn't know—nobody knows how much I, Rattle, want to have a talk with the little creature, as they call him. (Quite absurd of them, because he is inches higher than any of our shoulders.)

But what I was going to say was that I am going to have the first talk with him. For I've got a secret from them, now.

I've had a letter from Mr. Lascelles. There!

A letter written in his own hand!

It was brought to me by Lance-Corporal Gateshead, who somehow got round Mary the housemaid to smuggle him up into Mr. Lascelles's room while that nurse was having her dinner.

It's written, this note of mine, in rather wobbly pencil on a blank sheet torn from a note-book and folded into a funny little twist. It simply says:

"DEAR BETTY" (Not "Miss"),

"I must see you as soon as I can possibly work it. I have something to ask you. It's that favour which I was going to ask you the other morning, and I haven't had a chance since. I do so want it. Nurse says that I may see one of you for a minute, at six to-night. Please be the one. I do so want it.

"Yours,
            "LONELY SUBALTERN."

"P.S.—I really am, you know."

Just fancy! I mean his putting "Lonely Subaltern" again, like in those first letters.

And the "favour"! What can it be? What can it be? Anybody would be bursting with curiosity if they had had a note like that brought to them from a young man; I mean from anybody— Curiosity is the oddest feeling; it makes you so excited that you simply can't enjoy your tea, really; and you feel kind of aloof, too, from the light-hearted talk of other people about other things. Isn't it funny? You don't want to stop and see anybody's husband. Besides, when Harry Masters came in, I got a kind of clairvoyant sense that he hoped we'd go soon and leave him to have a tête-à-tête tea with his blooming bride. I believe in clairvoyance. So I didn't care if I wasn't the eldest of the party. I just did get up first, and told Nancy we should have to be going!

It's ten minutes' walk from the newly-married billet to the other side of the village, and I simply had to be back by six o'clock and hear all about the mysterious "favour" I was to be asked.

Anybody would have been dying to!

(Later.)

I'm afraid I rushed Evelyn home, rather; tearing across the short way by the fields, with Mr. Lascelles's note crackling inside my blouse.

Yes, I daresay you are going to say idiotic things about wearing young men's letters next to one's heart, but it wasn't meant for that kind of thing at all. It was simply that I always lose everything that I put into my vanity-bag, and I didn't want to lose this letter, because—well, because it would look so silly of me.

"Any one would think we were running for a train," said Evelyn rather pettishly when we got back beyond the village post-office.

I said, "My feet are cold," and rushed on like a runaway horse.

Who could help it, in my shoes? And it seemed as if we must have been mistaken about the fields being shorter than the road to the Grange, because it really took a longer time than usual!

When we got to the Grange—well! We needn't have rushed! We might as well have stayed on at Nancy's for all the use our rushing had been! In fact, if we had stayed with Nancy and finished our tea, properly, it would at least have postponed the sickening disappointment that awaited us at home!

Aunt Victoria, looking a little flushed and flustered, met us in the hall.

"What's the matter, Auntie?" I asked at once. "Mr. Lascelles isn't worse, is he?"

Aunt Victoria pronounced these awful words, "He's gone!"

"Gone!" exclaimed Evelyn and I together, not able to believe our ears. Evelyn added in a horrified voice, "Do you mean he is dead, Auntie?"

"Dead! Good Heavens! no, my dear child," said Aunt Victoria in an equally horrified voice. "I only mean that he has gone away from here."

"Where on earth to?" we asked loudly.

"To the Junction," said Aunt Victoria. "To that nursing home for wounded officers that they have got, that one that nurse came from."

"Gone!" I said. "But how? How could he possibly go?"

She pointed to the marks of wheels on our gravel.

"A motor came over from the Junction and whisked him off at half-past five. He asked me to say good-bye very nicely to you girls for him."

Here I heard myself say in a very angry voice, "Who came in the motor?"

"The matron of the nursing home, Miss Gates," Aunt Victoria told us, fanning herself with her lavender-scented handkerchief as if she'd had a rather fatiguing time. "She's a——" here she sat down on the hall chair and breathed hard. "A very efficient woman, I should think, very determined and very capable. I don't think Mr. Lascelles wanted to go at first. He said he was quite comfortable with us if he was not too much trouble, and the lady said that he would convalesce so much better at her home, and she took him off."

"Kidnapped him!" said Evelyn. "When he wanted to stay here! How tiresome of her, wasn't it, Rattle?"

I didn't say anything. I was too cross. If there's one thing I loathe, it's bad manners. And wasn't it the worst manners in the world for that woman, that Miss Gates whom I'd seen once, to come swooping along in a motor to people's houses, carrying off people's reluctant guests—reluctant to go with her, I mean. Here she came, upsetting Aunt Victoria!

(You could see poor Auntie had had her "siesta" disturbed, and was feeling it.) Upsetting Mr. Lascelles! For he'd something to ask me! He wanted to see me! Had written to me—and she'd whisked him off before we could catch a glimpse of each other!

Now goodness only knows when I shall be able to find out what he wanted; a convalescent man, too, ought to have his wishes studied! Any one with any idea of nursing should have known that!

"Nurse packed up and went with them, at a minute's notice," said Aunt Victoria.

"She would!" said I. "She's just the sort of nurse who would belong to that matron!"

Aunt Victoria, still fanning herself, said, "Perhaps she was right; he will have every comfort and care there."

"And didn't he here?" I said indignantly.

Aunt Victoria murmured something about the matron not seeming to think Mr. Lascelles's billet was exactly adapted for hospital-nursing, not any of the modern ideas of——

"That's nurse!" said I.

"Well, the matron was an old friend of his," Aunt Victoria said mildly. She sticks up for everybody, first Baby-Killers, then Kidnappers!

"She has the prior claim. It seems she nursed him before once—saved his life——"

I remembered the appendicitis-story on the road that day, and how she'd stared at me from the motor, and how she'd called Mr. Lascelles "Frankie," and all about her.

I said, "He called her 'Sister,' I suppose?"

"Yes, my dear, I believe he did."

"I tell you what I call her," I said bitterly. "A managing old maid!"

I don't know when I've felt so angry.

CHAPTER XX

I PLAY PROVIDENCE

Well, I've always heard that when one is very upset oneself, the best cure is to force oneself to take an interest in somebody else's troubles.

Of course, I'm not exactly "upset" about Mr. Lascelles having been kidnapped out of this house before I could hear what he wanted. I'm sorry for him, that's all.

But I'm sorrier still for my poor crossed-in-love sister Evelyn.

I really must devote some attention to her and her rejected suitor.

It makes me perfectly miserable to see somebody I am fond of taking love as Evelyn takes it. Her smile is a most half-hearted affair, and she takes absolutely no interest in her food, though she eats pretty well. At dinner-time she tried to make a meal of vegetables and gravy and one grain of rice pudding; but immediately Aunt Victoria looked up and said: "Evelyn, my dear child, is that all you are going to have? Aren't you feeling well? What is the matter with you?"

Of course, it is the last thing that poor old Evelyn wants for anybody to think that there is anything the matter with her, so she had to pretend that she had got rather a headache again through the stuffiness of the room where they have their bandaging class, and that that was why she didn't feel like eating.

And then next day she took to roast mutton and two helpings again as if nothing had happened.

However, of course I knew that concealment was gnawing away like a worm in the bud, like that girl in Shakespeare, and that Evelyn was feeling as if all the champagne had gone out of her life, as I once heard Mr. Lascelles express it. We do so miss him and his expressions!

It is—really, it is too beastly to be in a house full of women once more.

It is nearly as bad as before the troops came to Mud Flats.

At least, now I suppose one can't very well say it is as bad as that, because, after all, we do have men coming and going. Our brother-in-law, Harry, is in and out quite a lot, and he brings various of the men with him to have tea and to play the piano in the Lair.

And then, of course, we have occasionally the evidently quite homeless Mr. Curtis. Evidently Evelyn cares as much for the creature as if he were every inch a soldier, and, goodness knows! there are plenty of inches of him to be!

So since that is her ideal I do think she ought to be allowed to have it instead of grizzling and moping about it all day and half the night, and to think that it's only her obstinate idealism or whatever she likes to call it that is standing in the way of her being perfectly happy with the creature forever! You see, he won't be having to go out to the front like Nancy's Harry, because he (Mr. Curtis) has got a permanent job as instructor here.

And I am sure Aunt Victoria could be got round, considering how surprisingly kind and sympathetic she was about Nancy's war marriage.

Evelyn really is like the old song, "If she dies an old maid she will have only herself to blame."

This afternoon I told her so in the Lair, where she was sitting looking like the absolute incarnation of The Pip. We had a long, fruitless, and exhausting argument about it, which I won't go into again, because it was just like the last one we had, which you read all about before the German spy night.

Arguments are like history, having a way of repeating themselves.

And this one had a sort of constant refrain from Evelyn of, "It is all very well, Rattle, but you don't understand. You might be able to go to Edwin—I mean Mr. Curtis—and say to him, 'Look here, I have thought better of it. I will marry you, I thought I minded too much about Nancy at the party, and all that sort of thing, but I don't. All that I mind would be not being able to be with you any more'—I couldn't do that, Rattle; you don't understand."

I got so very tired of what one can't help considering as a parrot cry!

It is no earthly use ever arguing, especially when you are the youngest.

And all you can say is, "Yes, I do understand," and then the other person says, "No, you don't, you can't," and there you are!

What can be done?

Nothing!

So I resigned myself, and merely said, "No, perhaps I don't understand. Of course, I am the youngest, and, of course, I haven't ever been in love, so, of course, I haven't any right to an opinion; but look here, Evelyn, can't you talk it over with somebody else, and see what they think about it?"

Evelyn, holding her face in both hands, said gloomily, "What sort of person is there that I could possibly talk it over with?"

"Well," I said, "somebody married, who knew all about love and that!"

"Aunt Victoria, I suppose you mean," said Evelyn, with bitter irony.

"No, of course, not Aunt Victoria," I said patiently. "But what about Nancy?"

Evelyn gave a little furious jump out of her chair.

"Nancy!" she exclaimed indignantly. "But Nancy is the one that all the trouble is about—Nancy is the very last person that I should ever breathe a word to!"

"Is she?" I said, staring at Evelyn across the good old ink-spattered tablecloth of the Lair. "Now, that's funny, because, if I had been you, Nancy would have been the very first person to whom I should have turned! Just because she was at the bottom of the trouble, as you call it. I call it a storm in a teacup and a mountain and a molehill," I said, getting mixed up rather in my metaphors because I was really serious.

I said: "If I were in your place, Evelyn, I should go straight away to Nancy and get her to tell me exactly what had happened that time on the staircase. I should say: 'Look here, I do so want to marry Edwin, but I don't feel I can unless I know exactly how much he liked you first. Do you think he would have asked you to marry him if you hadn't got engaged to Harry Masters? Do you think he is only making love to you because he is one of those young men who marry the family rather more than the girl? They get a type that they admire and they stick to it. If the Nancy of the family won't have them they take the Evelyn. That is what I am afraid of,' I should say to Nancy, in your place, 'and I really don't know how to stand it; please tell me exactly everything that happened by the staircase.' I should make her give me a full descrip——"

"Stop, Rattle, stop! You really do say such dreadful things," complained Evelyn, putting her hands over her ears to shut out anything else I might have been able to say. "You really are what Mr. Curtis once said you were——"

"Oh? What?" I asked. For one can't help always being interested in what people have said of one, even if the people don't exactly thrill one. "What did Mr. Curtis call me?"

"An artless and opinionated kid," said Evelyn, so listlessly that, disgusted as I was, I hadn't the heart to tell her what I thought of her precious Mr. Curtis; a pompous mile of measuring-tape! "You really can't enter into one's feelings yet. I'd much rather die or go into Miss Gates's Nursing Home for life than say a single word of all that to Nancy! And promise, Rattle!" she added, suddenly, "promise that you will never say a word of it either. Promise, Honour Bright, that you will never breathe a single syllable of it to her. Oh, if you did——"

"All right, old thing, I won't; don't get so fearfully excited. I've promised now. I always do what I say I will, don't I? I've never broken my word yet," I said, drawing myself up to my full height, which unfortunately made me bump the gas-bracket, hard. Rubbing my head, I said, "You're simply spoiling two lives, that's all."

"Oh, no; I expect he'll get over it, as you said yourself," was Evelyn's dreary answer, "and as for me, I shall go away and be a V.A.D. as soon as the time's up and I needn't be under Aunt Victoria's wing any more. I've got all my Red Cross certificates, and I ought to do some useful war-work."

"But, my goodness, d'you expect this war will still be going on, Evelyn, when you're twenty-five?"

"Captain Masters says it'll last till the youngest of our politicians die, so I expect it'll be going on when I'm seventy," said Evelyn.

You see the kind of mood she was in!

In fact, I was feeling rather pessimistic and ruffled myself as I strolled out of the Lair again.

For, you know, Evelyn dragging that promise out of me has just scotched a nice little plan that I had been making on my own.

I thought, "Well, if that silly Evelyn won't go and have it out with Nancy, I will go myself; I will tell her the whole complicated affair and hear what she has to say. Why not?"

However, that, you see, was nipped in the bud. I am a man of my word, or a woman, or a flapper, whichever you like to call it, and my lips are sealed by my own hand as far as Nancy is concerned.

But here a ray of hope dawns upon me. I haven't sealed them as far as anybody else is concerned. I haven't said that I wouldn't say anything to the other principal actor in this performance. So why shouldn't I speak to Mr. Curtis?

In fact, I shall. I have made up my mind to speak to him as soon as I get the opportunity!

The chance came sooner than I expected it would.

I went out for my usual afternoon walk, up near that field that is all riddled with trenches, where I had come upon Penny that afternoon when I little dreamt what it was he was up to.

And again I passed the Class, singing, "When the Boys come Home," with, trailing a long way after them on the road, the leggy, eyeglassed figure of Evelyn's adored one.

He looked at me as much as to say, "Why are you alone, not with HER?" but I wasn't damped.

"You are just the very person I want to see," I told him in a friendly way, stopping short as he saluted. "Will you see me home by the longest way round, please?"

"Wh—what? Oh! certainly! With pleasure, Miss Elizabeth," said Mr. Curtis; with a great deal of hesitation would have been truthfuller. Evidently he was alarmed beyond words at the idea of this tête-à-tête with the artless and opinionated one, and couldn't think what on earth it was going to be about.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say: "Do not agitate yourself, my good young man! this is out-of-doors, with no staircase window rattling, and at any moment there are motor-lorries and people passing, so you needn't think I shall expect you to behave to me as you did to Nancy."

However, I realised that this would be quite the wrong opening. So I said nothing for a moment, but merely trudged along by his side, in the gloaming, oh, my darling, when the lights were falling low.

To return to prose. We were going down the road to the Junction that Mr. Lascelles and I had whizzed down on our way to Nancy's wedding.

What ages ago that seemed now! It really does seem as if we had never had what I used to call the "Incubus" in the house with us at all....

However, here was this other creature wondering what in the world it was I had got to say to him.

It was a situation that called for the greatest delicacy and tact, as it says in the papers.

I thought I had better stop beating about the bush, take the bull by the horns and begin at once with the main issue.

I began: "Mr. Curtis! You know that my sister Evelyn is desperately in love with you?——"

At this he turned round on me like a jaguar at bay or something of that sort.

His voice was as sharp as any old pistol shot as he rapped out at me, "Miss Elizabeth! I don't know what your idea may be in making this kind of joke; but, if you don't mind my saying so, we will have no more of it. I consider it to be very poor taste."

You would have known he had been a schoolmaster, wouldn't you, by the way he said that? Schoolmasters always talk about "we" when they mean just themselves, just like the Kaiser.

And he—Mr. Curtis, I mean—started striding away so fast that, long as my own legs are, I had to put my best foot foremost to keep up with him.

"Mr. Curtis, Mr. Curtis," I exclaimed. "It isn't a joke——"

"It is not a joke to me," said Mr. Curtis grimly, through the gathering darkness.

"No, nor to me," I said, panting a little, for I was out of breath galloping after him like this, "nor to Evelyn."

"Please, I do not think we need bring your sister's name into it," said Mr. Curtis, as stiff as a dress-shirt that has just come home from the laundry.

He must be frantically in love, mustn't he, to think that Evelyn's mere name is too good to have her youngest sister mention it?

"But I must," I insisted. "I had to mention Evelyn's name, because it's about her that I want to speak to you."

"I should prefer it if you chose some other subject for conversation," said that awful Mr. Curtis that Evelyn was breaking her heart over at this moment. How true it is that Love is blind! I should think he must be deaf as well, besides not having any sense of humour!

However, faint heart never won fair gentleman! Not that Mr. Curtis is fair, being one of these men who is much of a muchness with their own khaki. I do like a man to be one thing or the other. Either definite black or quite fair or even red; but to get on with what I was saying to Mr. Curtis.

"I really mean it," I insisted, trying to keep in step with him. "My sister Evelyn is fearfully in love with you. I—I am very anxious about her because of it!"

"Miss Elizabeth, you must allow me to beg you not to say these things," barked Mr. Curtis, still doing the heavy schoolmaster. "Since it is not a very doubtful joke on your part, it is a very unfortunate and incomprehensible mistake."

"It isn't," I insisted, striding along by the side of the man who was going to be my brother-in-law, or I would know the reason why. "Strange as it may seem, it's the absolute truth."

"I am the best judge of that," said the stony voice of Mr. Curtis, just above me. "Since you have broached the subject, Miss Elizabeth, I may as well tell you that I have the best possible reason for knowing that Miss Evelyn does not and could not ever care for me in the least."

"She told you so, I suppose?"

This satire was quite lost on him.

If you notice, satire nearly always is, on everybody. You have only got to say a thing without smiling and everybody takes it literally and sees nothing further in it.

"She did tell me, since you must know," said Mr. Curtis, shortly.

But at the back of his words there was such a sort of quiver of sorrow and yearning and hopeless loneliness that I overlooked the rude things he'd said about me. I could not help feeling sorry for him.

"Because a woman says a thing it isn't always a sign that it is perfectly true," I informed him. "It is not true that Evelyn does not care for you. Even if she says so one-hundred-and-sixty-five times a day, it isn't true, Mr. Curtis. You aren't the only person with 'reasons' for what you say, either."

He turned towards me very quickly.

It's a shame that all these goings-on and excitement didn't happen in the summer last year, when one could have seen a young man's face and what he looked like when he was walking down a country lane beside one, talking about Life and Love and things.

By this time it was so dusk I couldn't see what the expression on Mr. Curtis's face was like at all.

But I daresay it was just as anxious and agitated as his voice as he turned to me and said, "I want to know what you mean. I want to know what reasons you have for supposing that—that—that what you have hit on is the truth."

I said, with the proud consciousness of being perfectly truthful, "I didn't hit on it. I shouldn't have believed it, but that—well! Evelyn told me so herself."

"What?" cried Mr. Curtis, and turned round in such agitation and so quickly that his eyeglasses fell off his nose and dangled violently over his not-nearly-broad-enough chest.

"Yes," I said firmly. "Evelyn told me. I had it all out with her, more than a week ago. She'd simply murder me, too, if she knew that I was talking about her to you and telling you all about it at this moment."

There was a long, long pause as we walked along.

The voices of the Class came faintly to us from further down the road as they tramped along, singing:

"There's a sil—ver loin—ing
Threw ther dark claoud shoin—ing——"

And then Mr. Curtis said to me in the quickest, most uncertain voice, "Quite right. I ought not to be discussing—HER, even with you."

Then another pause, after which he said, more quickly still, "I've got to know. Please tell me exactly what she did say; every word, if you can."

Well, thank goodness, I have a memory like a gramophone. I can remember every syllable that people said and how they said it.

I simply took this memory of mine back to that afternoon when I found Evelyn sobbing in her bedroom, and I rattled it all off, with much expression, to the young man who had been the cause of those sobs.

He said in that quick voice, "I can't believe it. I can't believe it!"

"You will have to," I said. "If you had any sense," I added, to this young man who'd been what they call "so-brilliant-up-at-Oxford," "you would know that I couldn't possibly have made that story up. Made-up stories," I said, "always sound so much more like Life than a real one. That is one of the ways by which you tell the difference. That is what they mean by truth is stranger than fiction. There is nothing more improbable than the things that go on in real life," said I, meditatively. "I have been finding that out all this autumn."

But I found that Mr. Curtis hadn't been listening to one word of my interesting theories.

He was striding down the road beside me again so fast that I had to run a little, muttering, "Nancy! She minded that about Nancy?"

Just as he was saying this we arrived at that end of the village where those semi-detached and furnished with those castor-oil plant villas are that I told you about, where the Masters are in billets.

No light coming out of them, of course, but you could tell them by the dark gables against the pale sky.

Here, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, Mr. Curtis stopped.

"Miss Elizabeth," he said earnestly, "you have said on your honour that you are in earnest? You are serious about what you have just told me?"

"Yes, I don't say on my honour twice as a rule," I said, rather snappily.

"It is true, then," said Mr. Curtis, going off in his daze again.

Then again he woke up out of it and said briskly:

"Very well. In that case there is only one thing to be done, Miss Elizabeth."

I urged him to let me know what it was, of course, but he went on to say, "Thank you very much for what you have told me. I'll say good evening."

"Good evening?" I echoed, astonished.

"Yes, I think we part company here," he said firmly, saluting again. "I must go in and call upon Mrs. Masters."

"No, you don't," I said, gently but firmly. That is, not very gently, but quite firmly. "You don't go in and see my sister Nancy without my hearing what it is all going to be about."

For, you know, although I had promised Evelyn solemnly that I wasn't going to tell Nancy anything, he hadn't. I certainly didn't see why I should be done out of hearing him do it. Of course, I knew that it was about Evelyn that he was going to talk to Nancy.

He said, very stiffly, "This matter is between ourselves, Miss Elizabeth."

But I said, "No fear. I told you everything. I don't see why I should be cut out of all the fun now, just as if I were a little child that you talk French before as soon as the conversation begins to be a little interesting. In fact, I won't. I'll be 'opinionated.' I am coming in with you now!"

CHAPTER XXI

NANCY TO THE RESCUE

All this wrangling was going on in front of the creaky gate of the Masters's billet, me holding Mr. Curtis by the sleeve.

I daresay I wasn't behaving like a lady; I didn't care if he thought I was a perfect un-lady and how could I be that angel's sister? Matter of utter indifference to me. He'd already said I was artless, and a kid. All right. But I would hear the end of all this, and besides, I had to see that he got my side of the story right to Nancy.

So, taking the bull by the horns again, I rang the bell, three times.

And when the scared rabbit came to the door who's the landlady's servant, I said firmly, "Mrs. Masters," and I clumped in in my rather heavy boots, shoo-ing Mr. Curtis in front of me as if he were a horse I had to turn in to a field.

A door a little further down the passage opened, and a soft voice, almost a coo, called out, "Is that my beau'ful boy come home? Is that my handsome love?"

Fancy! It was Nancy! Quite a strange voice to me, it sounded; like hearing the chime of a new clock, that you've not got accustomed to, strike in the house. And fancy hearing her say those extraordinary things! Was that what she called Harry when she thought he was by himself? Her handsome love! Well, so he is, I suppose, but it sounded so unexpected from her! I always knew she was sentimental, but not that she would go to these lengths! Wasn't it funny?

Even while I was thinking this, I'd called back quickly, "No, it isn't him. It's only Mr. Curtis and me."

"Oh! Rattle, my dear child, do come in," cried Nancy, relapsing into her usual voice again. "Come along; you're just in time for the muffins."

"I don't think I will come in, Miss Elizabeth," was Mr. Curtis's last effort. "I—I will look in to-morrow."

"Yes, and to-day," said I, clutching him firmly, "to your right. Quick—March!"

And I fairly pushed him into the Masters's little, overcrowded sitting-room, with all the vases and the enlarged photographs of the landlady's sailor-sons mixed up with the wedding presents, and Nancy on her knees on the hearthrug, taking a dish of muffins out of the grate.

Nancy had got on all new clothes, I saw.

A new blouse, that you could see her pink satin ribbon tie-ups through, a skirt I hadn't seen before, delicious silk stockings and shoes that made her feet look quite small, though she knows perfectly well that she and Evelyn and I all take large sixes, and why should we mind, being much taller than most men in the place? Mr. Lascelles told me one day that he would hate a very small foot on a rather large woman. Make her all out of proportion, and remind him of wooden legs.

However, to get on to Nancy. (By the way, she has got her hair done quite differently. This is just to show you what a mass of changes married life brings about!)

She beamed upon Mr. Curtis, and said, "Hullo, Edwin. So you have come, too. Sit down. No, not in that easy chair. You will never get up again with your long legs. Take the sofa, it's higher. You been taking my baby sister for a walk, you incorrigible philanderer?"

This remark annoyed me so intensely that I snapped out:

"No! Your baby sister has been taking him for a walk, and for a good talking-to. And now he has got something to ask you. Go on, Mr. Curtis. Go on," I said mercilessly, seeing him turn turtle and not wanting to go one bit. "Your shot."

"Well, Edwin, what is it?" said Nancy, in the kind young married woman's voice.

Edwin said desperately, "It is something I would have liked to ask you about by ourselves. That is—I don't know exactly—I—er—Ahur!" he cleared his throat. "I really think we'll leave it alone, perhaps."

Nancy turned to me.

"Men are so bad at beginning always," she said, encouragingly. "Rattle, you tell me."

"I can't—that is—I mustn't," I said regretfully. "I promised Evelyn on my solemn word of honour that I wouldn't breathe a single syllable."

"Oh, it's about Evelyn, is it?" said Nancy, a sudden light coming into her face. She added, quite as a matter of fact, "Won't she have anything to say to you, Edwin?"

I could see by "Edwin's" expression that it was a bombshell to him that Nancy should have guessed he ever wanted to have anything to say to Evelyn.

Men always think that nobody knows what they are up to except themselves.

It's such a rest to come back to the society of one's own sex!

Yes, it was perfect relief to me after all my uphill, heart-to-heart talk with Mr. Curtis, to whom every mortal thing has to be explained!

Nancy, without another word having to be said, caught at once the wireless messages that were going on all round in the atmosphere, so to speak, and said rapidly, "I'm sure she likes you awfully. Or if she won't have you it's simply because she thinks you've been making love to me first. Is that it, by any chance?"

Mr. Curtis looked at Nancy with a glance that was one quarter admiration and three quarters disapproval, which I suppose is what a man always does feel when he thinks that a woman has been at all clever in any way.

He said, "Mrs. Masters, you are a witch!"

Nancy said, "If you will excuse me a minute, I will run and get my broomstick and my steeple hat—I mean, I'll just get my things on and come out."

"Where to?" I asked, rather staggered, because I knew she was expecting the adored Harry ("the beau'ful boy") to come in to his sumptuous, newly-married tea at any minute.

But she said, "Where do you think? I am coming on to tackle Miss Evelyn at once."

"Oh, no, please," said Mr. Curtis and I together, both looking absolutely aghast. "Evelyn mustn't know anything about our having told you—not that we did really tell you anything, but—but——"

But Nancy had whisked out and presently whisked down again in furs that were evidently another wedding present. A perfect plantation of them, in fact, and new boots with pearl grey suede tops and the cheekiest tassels dangling from the tops of them.

"I am going to revisit my girlhood's home with my younger sister, and you aren't invited, Edwin," said that puss-in-boots, Nancy. "You had better disappear to your billet and resign yourself to having seen absolutely nothing of the Verdeley family for the last forty-eight hours."

So out we went again into the pitch black evening.

On the doorstep we met Nancy's new husband, who exclaimed rather angrily, "Hullo! hullo! what's this? You are not going out, Honey, just as I am going to get my tea, are you?"

"Only for a few minutes, on urgent family affairs, darling," said Nancy sweetly. "You take Mr. Curtis back with you and get him to share your lonely tea. Yes, do. Don't forget the hot muffins in the corner by the fireplace."

So, having shaken the two men, off we pranced again.

"What are you going to say, Nancy?" I asked her as we got to the garden gate of the Moated Grange.

"I am not sure till I'm in the middle of it," said Nancy gaily, but in a low voice. "Still, I am determined that if I am the only obstacle it will soon be cleared out of the course of true love between Evelyn and Edwin Curtis! They are just made for each other, for Evelyn is such a bundle of scruples and conscientiousness and all that sort of thing. And she wouldn't be happy with what you might call a normal kind of young man! (How could she be? Look at them.) Now, Edwin Curtis is the kind of young man for whom nine women out of ten haven't any use at all, as Harry says. I confess he would bore me stiff in ten minutes," said Nancy frankly. "So it would you, Baby. But birds of a feather flock together. And there's quite a pretty name for that sort of young man, Harry says. He's an 'idealist.'"

We found that other bird of a feather, by which I mean Evelyn, pretending to knit in the Lair, which was unlighted except for the red-hot log fire into which she was gazing, seeing pictures I expect of herself and Mr. Curtis living in a little home of their own for the next ninety years! Just think how awful!

"Do you mind if I shed a little light on the subject?" said Nancy, apologetically. "I want you to look at these patterns and tell me which I am to have for an evening dress. Choose by candle-light for candle-light, you know." And she brought out one of those little books of many-coloured silk of various soft shades—rose pink, Nile green, blue and palest heliotrope.

"But I thought you had got five evening frocks, out of your grandfather's allowance?" said Evelyn. She had already confided to me that she thought it perfectly dreadful to spend money on clothes in war-time, however newly-married you might be! Surely one nice plain coat and skirt and a few serviceable Vyella shirts and some country boots ought to be quite enough for the trousseau of any war-bride whose husband expects to be off to the front before they had eaten up what was left of the wedding cake!

"Yes; but Harry wants me to have a new frock as much as possible like the mauve one I was wearing the first night he saw me," explained Nancy, treading hard on my foot with her new French heel to draw my attention to how she was just going to begin. It hurt like anything, but I was a Spart and did not give a sign.

"You remember, Evelyn, that party that those three—poor Frank Lascelles, and my Harry and Mr. Curtis——?"

"Yes, I remember," said Evelyn in her shortest and most discouraging voice, not realising how absolutely impossible it is to discourage any young newly-married woman who's had a whole week of getting her own way and doing absolutely anything she fancies in this world. Nancy went on in tones of a rather gay grandmother reminiscing over her past of about forty years ago. She does talk much more, and with much more "go" since she's been married, anyhow!

"Dear me! I wonder what made me behave so awfully badly that evening? Because I felt like it, I suppose. Do you remember, Evelyn, what a fearful lecture you gave me for getting Mr. Curtis to kiss me?"

"Getting him to!" exclaimed Evelyn, quite suddenly. "Allowing him to, I suppose you mean?"

"Good gracious, no! I don't mean 'allowing to.' If I did, I should have said so. It doesn't so much matter saying what you mean once you are married," said Nancy, gaily. "You can allow yourself a little luxury in the way of telling the truth now and again, after that.... Do you think this would look pretty with the gold waist-band and a little edging of this, Rattle?"

Here there was another prod of Nancy's heel on my instep. Evidently a signal, so I rose to it and said, "Never mind the gold belt. I am far more interested in these 'glimpses into the Past.' You don't mean to say, do you, that that evening when you went and sat out with Mr. Curtis on the landing over that rattling window that you actually asked him to kiss you, did you?"

"Oh, no! Not in so many words, my dear," said the shameless Nancy. "But it amounts to the same thing, doesn't it, when you allow yourself to lean so close to a young man's shoulder, when he is wedging a window, that your curls get rumpled against his cheek?"

She went on in an awfully good imitation of Evelyn's shocked voice when she doesn't like something that has been said.

"In that case a girl knows perfectly well what to expect. She has only got herself to blame. The young man naturally has to take advantage of the situation or look like a fool, which naturally Mr. Curtis did not wish to do."

"But what about you?" I asked, since Evelyn said nothing. She had her golden head bent over the book of patterns. But I could see that she was greedily devouring every single word that passed between Nancy and me.

"Oh! I—I just wanted to see what he would do. A young man with that reputation of never having kissed a girl before in his life. I thought it would be so amusing, Rattle!"

I put in the question that I saw Evelyn was simply dying to ask.

"And was it amusing?"

"Rather not!" said Nancy with fervour. "Just a peck on the cheek as if he were rubbing a smudge off, and then a look of, 'Oh, Great Scott! Why have I done this? For Heaven's sake let's get back to the others!'

"You see, Rattle, the Mr. Curtis type of young man isn't a success at flirtations. He doesn't want to kiss a girl casually just because she happens to be there and rather pretty, like Harry does—did, I mean. You see, Rattle, Mr. Curtis is the kind of man who cares about nothing but The Real Thing, the One Love of a Lifetime. Taking a girl and setting her up in a niche in his heart, to worship her forever, without a look or a thought for any one else. It's a—a rather rare type, Harry thinks. But Mr. Curtis certainly is that type. What one calls The Idealist."

Here she gave a lightning swift wink at me as she pronounced the word the second time this evening with oh! such a different tone of voice. You would have thought that Nancy considered an idealist was the only type to be! She went on with the same earnestness, "He keeps his real kisses for his real love-making, for the girl whom he wants to make love to for keeps."

Again I asked the question that I knew that the silent Evelyn was longing to have answered.

"But look here, Nancy. Aren't you the girl that he would have liked for keeps?"

"Me!" said Nancy, with a little shriek of laughter. "Good Heavens! what made you dream of such a thing?"

"Why," I said, "I always thought that Mr. Curtis was longing to marry you, and that Harry was his successful rival!"

"I must tell Harry that," said Nancy with her enjoying laugh. "Only last night we were talking about how odd it was to think of the different kinds of girls by which the different kinds of men were attracted. Harry said the kind of girl he was crazy about, such as me," drawing herself up in the new furs, "always had left old Curtis as cold as mutton, his idea of an attractive girl being the sweet, womanly sort of creature who thinks about Life and Duty and taking things seriously, and never putting any powder on her nose, and all that sort of thing. That is so unlike me! I am perfectly certain that Edwin Curtis is only too thankful that he wasn't asked to be best man at the wedding, in which case he would have been required to give me another kiss! Too trying! Well, I must be off now to my married home," she chattered on, after one glance had shown her that Evelyn had lapped up every word of this. "Good-night, Evelyn, thanks so much for your advice about the frock. Good-night, Rattlesnake. Don't bother to come to the door with me."

But of course I went to the door with her, and to the gate. "You might tell me one thing," I whispered as I kissed her good-night.

Another newly-married change is that she has taken to using some rather nice scent like honeysuckle and raspberry jam mixed.

"You might tell me," I said, "how much of that rigmarole is true?"

"Rigmarole? I don't know what you mean, Rattle," said Nancy very solemnly. "True? I don't know what you are talking about." And she stalked off without another word. I am sure I heard her laugh as she turned the corner of our lane, where I saw the red point of a cigarette (Harry's) coming to meet her.

But I am sure she will never tell me now.

That is another of the things that I shall never, never know!

CHAPTER XXII

TWO MORE ENGAGEMENTS

I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly what happened next, because, you see, I don't know myself.

The history of any family is bound to have some of these hiatuses in it.

What Nancy went back and reported to Mr. Curtis I never heard. However, my conscience was simply beaming upon me for having done my little best to make two people happy. The afternoon after that talk with Mr. Curtis it beamed some more.

For the very moment that he could get back from his Class (and he must have galloped!) there came the gallant Curtis to call. He asked quite unabashedly for "Miss Evelyn Verdeley," with the accent on the Evelyn.

I heard him, because I happened to be in the hall when Mary opened the door, so I said, "You'll find my sister in the drawing-room."

He didn't, of course; there not being a soul in the drawing-room, as Aunt Victoria was enjoying that convenient siesta of hers upstairs, while Evelyn was knitting in the Lair in the most awful old delaine blouse—the last sort of blouse that any young woman would want to be proposed to in. It really was truly thoughtful of me not to let her, I think. I came into the Lair with a perfectly un-give-away face on and said, "Evelyn, be an angel, will you? Go into the drawing-room and talk pretty to the curate until Auntie has finished her nap. He's come," I said, sorry for the fib, but what else could I tell her? "he's come about some subscription or other."

Evelyn sighed. "Can I go in this blouse?"

"No. I don't think you can," said I, critically. "It is all undone at the back, and there are two loops off, and pins look so untidy. I am sure the curate would be horrified."

This awful thought drove Evelyn upstairs and into a nice clean white silk shirt and her hair done again before she ran down to the drawing-room to see the curate.

Curate was good, wasn't it?

Well, of course I didn't wait in to see what was going to happen when Evelyn discovered her mistake, and found herself face to face with the rejected Curtis youth. I slipped on my belted green blanket-coat and the little leather cap that I had worn at the Junction on Nancy's wedding-day, and I went out for a prolonged prowl by myself all over the charming country scenery, don't you know! of Mud Flats. I do think I was rather an unselfish angel, because you know I couldn't go to tea with Nancy even. I knew that the beloved Harry would be in, and that he would be perfectly furious at having his tête-à-tête spoiled two days running by tiresome sisters-in-law, so I walked doggedly all over the place, and even when it began to rain that drizzling, mizzling, depressing way it does here, I wouldn't go in. I thought the emptier the house is the better for Evelyn and Mr. Curtis to come to their understanding!

Then I thought, yes, presently the house will be quite empty when two out of us three girls are married, and then I shall be left alone with Aunt Victoria.

Well, I suppose that is only to be expected. The youngest ought to be the last to be married, even if she ever gets married at all, which is not always the case. Very likely I shan't get married after all. I shall be the spinster aunt, and just live on at the Moated Grange, spinsing. It isn't very often that out of a large family of girls the whole lot get married and live happily ever after. And who have I had to like me awfully much, since there were no young men who you could count as young men at Mud Flats?

Nobody at all!

Not unless you could count Mr. Lascelles, I thought, walking along quickly to keep myself warm in that chilling drizzle. Of course, he did write charming letters to me when he was the Lonely Subaltern. I was reading them all over to myself last night when I was going to bed, and really they're the kind of letters that any girl might be jolly pleased to get!

It's true I didn't know who was writing to me, but he knew who it was that he was writing to when he said all these nice things to me.

Then there was all that that Nancy told me before she was married about the other men, and how they all said that Frank Lascelles was frantically attracted by the youngest of the girls at his billet.

Of course it's all rubbish, that.

Still ... I do wonder what first put the idea into their heads?

(Later.)

Now, would you have believed it? Could you have imagined that any one would have been so unkind and shown such black ingratitude as my sister Evelyn?

When I got in to the Moated Grange, very late and very cold, and absolutely dying for my tea, which I had gone without all for the sake of that girl, what do you think had happened? Why, I didn't even see her and the Curtis youth, who is just as ungrateful as she is. They were in the Lair; still in the Lair, if you please, though he had arrived at three, and you surely might have thought that they had got through all they wanted to say to each other by a quarter to six!!

But, oh no! Apparently not!

It was Aunt Victoria who met me and beckoned me into the drawing-room with the most extraordinary mixture of expressions on her face. "Rattle, I have some wonderful news for you," she said. "Evelyn and Mr. Curtis have just told me that they care for each other and wish to be engaged to be married."

"Good heavens! Auntie," I said, with my best surprised face on. "Are you going to let them?"

"Let them!" said Aunt Victoria in a resigned tone. "I have given up thinking about letting or not letting any of you girls do anything you want; after Nancy and Harry I assure you nothing will surprise me—nothing!"

Well, I thought that was good news in case I ever wish to get engaged to anybody. I mean, if there were anybody to get engaged to!

Mr. Curtis stayed on and on and on, missing an appointment which he had with the adjutant at the "Pearl and Oyster," and keeping Evelyn as well as us from having a speck of anything to eat; but such is love! It seems to be quite as good as any concentrated food as far as going without your meals is concerned, but it does take up a lot of time!

At last! At long last! we heard the front door bang and Mr. Curtis's heavy boots going scrunch, scrunch down the gravel.

And then at last Evelyn condescended to come in.

She was very pink and very untidy haired and looked so happy. She was absolutely a different girl from when I had seen her last.

I was so awfully bucked! I went up to her at once to kiss her. I couldn't help noticing the careful way in which she gave me the edge of her cheek to do it on! You could have seen from that that she was an engaged girl! As soon as I could I got her alone and said: "Now, Evelyn, do tell me. I have been simply dying to know all about it!"

Evelyn smiled kindly at me and said, in a far-away sort of voice, "Oh, but I thought you knew. It is quite all right. Edwin and I are engaged to be married, and I am the happiest girl in the world!"

"Yes, but I don't mean that," I said a little impatiently. "Don't keep the conversation so general; I want to know all about it properly. Every detail. What he said and what you said, and what happened next, and all that."

"That," said Evelyn decidedly, "you will never hear!"

"What!" I exclaimed, simply appalled, as you can imagine, by this black display of sisterly ingratitude. "Do you mean you are not going to?"

"I am certainly not going to discuss it with my youngest sister," said Evelyn, just as if her youngest sister hadn't been responsible for all her happiness! "Some things are too sacred to be talked about." Well! Comment is superfluous; so I'll simply leave Evelyn's behaviour at that.

She's been engaged a week now....

And the more it goes on the more one feels that this event has touched the summit of all earthly excitements and that nothing further will ever happen!

Now something has happened. This afternoon something happened by the second post. A letter came for Aunt Victoria in a rather determined handwriting that I didn't know.

Mary took it in to her where she was playing patience as usual in the drawing-room.

In a short time she cried: "Oh, Rattle, my dear, it never rains but it pours; here is news of your young friend, Mr. Lascelles."

"Oh, three cheers!" I said, feeling really pleased, for it had seemed ages and ages since we had heard anything about him.

Also, I was only just beginning to realise how frightfully I missed him. You see, there really is nobody young about the place for me to talk to. Nancy married, and Evelyn worse, namely, engaged! I should be truly thankful to have had Mr. Lascelles's merry prattle and his footstep on the stair, if only to cheer me up for the loss of my sister.

I said: "Is he well enough to come back to his billet?"

"No, my dear, apparently not," said Auntie, still holding on to Mr. Lascelles's letter. "But it is suggested that he is well enough to have visitors, and that some of us might be allowed to go over to the Junction and see him.... Now, I'd go myself with pleasure, poor dear little Mr. Lascelles! But you know what rheumatism it gives me to travel in that horrid little draughty train in this weather. And Evelyn has arranged to meet Mr. Curtis' sister, who is coming down. So I think, Rattle, that you will have to go over and make our apologies."

I could have skipped for joy!

You see, I was really longing to talk to somebody about the Evelyn-Curtis affair. I knew Mr. Lascelles would be simply thrilled to hear the details of it, considering he was the person who had first introduced the noble-minded Edwin to the bosom of our family! And you know how cheering it is to have an interesting story to tell to any one who you guess will drink in every syllable with gusto!

Hence my glee. But I didn't want Aunt Victoria to change her mind about my going, so I said quite casually, "Oh, I'll go if you like. I'll do my best to cheer up the wounded."

Aunt Victoria said, contemplating her cards on the green table, "Yes, I daresay he will be quite glad to see one of us again. Though I don't suppose he will need any 'cheering up' at present. At least, not judging by Mr. Curtis and Harry."

"Judging by Mr. Curtis and Harry?" I repeated. "How do you mean, Auntie?"

Aunt Victoria moved the Queen of Hearts and then replied, "Well, you see they are engaged too."

"Engaged too?" I echoed, thinking I couldn't have heard what she'd said. "Engaged too? You can't mean that Mr. Lascelles is engaged?"

"That won't do," said Auntie, slipping the Queen down again. "What did you say, Rattle? Oh, yes; Mr. Lascelles. Why shouldn't he be engaged?"

"Why—but—but—— Yes, why shouldn't he?" I said, with a most peculiar mixy sort of feeling in my chest; pure surprise, you know, and unexpectedness. "Of course; everybody is, nearly. It—it—it seems to be in the air. But, Auntie, is he?"

"So it seems," said Auntie, glancing at his letter before she slipped it back into her knitting bag. "I hadn't heard anything about it before, had any of you girls?"

"No, I'm sure we hadn't," I said, rather dismally. For, you see, this meant I shouldn't have even a friend left to myself! Everybody under sixty engaged—except me! And who on earth was this other girl—I mean this girl who had got engaged to the Lonely Subaltern? He must have been engaged all the time he was here, I supposed.

Well! He might have told us before! Pretending to be such friends, and keeping a thing like that from us all the time! No wonder I felt sort of sore and hurt.

I said, "Auntie, has he told you her name?"

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Victoria blandly. Then she exclaimed, "Ah!" in great delight, for the patience had "come out" unexpectedly. She gloated over this for what seemed like ten minutes before she condescended to go back to the subject of Mr. Lascelles's fiancée.

"Quite a surprise to me, though I am making up my mind never to be surprised at any engagement," said Aunt Victoria, gathering up her cards again. "I see now why she was so anxious to nurse him herself——"

"What?" I almost shrieked. "Is it that awful domineering, self-satisfied, blue-and-white nurse from the Nursing Home who was here?"

"No. Oh, no," said Aunt Victoria. "It's not the nurse, it's the matron of the Nursing Home herself."

"Miss Gates?" I ejaculated in a kind of mixture of a whisper and a scream. "D'you mean Mr. Lascelles is engaged to be married to that old Miss Gates?"

"So it seems, my dear," said Aunt Victoria, starting another patience. "But you couldn't possibly call her 'old'!"

Couldn't I?

I could call her lots more things than that! That woman engaged to Mr. Lascelles?

Why, he's twenty-four, and she must be at least ten years older than that! Years past any thought of engagements, and loves, and follies of that sort!

Why—why——!

I hope she knows what they call the behaviour of an elderly woman who goes and commandeers the affections of a mere boy? Cradle-snatching!

Robbing the nursery!

Good gracious!

So that's what she meant by calling him "Frankie" and pretending to be a sister to him!

That's why she motored down here and swept him off to her den like the spider and the fly!

She was sick and tired of being an old maid, I suppose, and she took him to be a comfort to her declining years!

As for him—— Well, what he can see in a withered frump of thirty-four——

Never mind. It's nothing to me. As far as I'm concerned he can marry his grandmother if he likes—I mean, anybody else's grandmother.

The only annoying part about it to me is that you can't possibly chatter away to an engaged man or woman as you can to a bachelor, because you know perfectly well that it will all be passed on to whoever they're engaged to. This sad phenomenon in natural history has cut off a lot of my conversations with Nancy, also with Evelyn. Now, of course, I shan't be able to say another word to Mr. Lascelles ever.

So that's taken most of the interest out of my trip to the Nursing Home at the Junction to-morrow.

I have a good mind not to go.

Horrible woman! I shan't go.