Part 23 (2/2)

The next moment confusion seized her as she recognised the inference, but the words were spoken beyond recall, and Ralph's glowing face showed that he was not likely to forget them.

”You darling! Hope, do you mean it? Have we been misunderstanding each other all this time?” He stretched his hand towards hen, then hurriedly drew it back as an old lady put up her _pince-nez_ to regard him from afar. ”Hang these people! What a nuisance they are! I'll tell you a secret, Hope. I fell in love with you that very first evening while you were singing your little song, and I've been uncommonly miserable ever since. Well?”

”Well--what?”

”One expects some response to a statement like that!”

Hope gave a soft, contented laugh.

”I--liked you too, and I have been _wretched_! What made you come here to-day?”

”Truda told me about your interview, and volunteered the intelligence that you seemed relieved to discover that I was not the happy man. She spoke to Avice too, I imagine, for I was asked to join you this afternoon in a very marked manner.”

So Truda had repented her jealous exactions, and had tried to undo the mischief which they had wrought. That was generous of her, but Hope blushed with a discomfited air as she said:

”I thought I pretended so beautifully! I thought no one could guess.

There is something else I want to explain. That evening last winter when you wanted to see me home--it was not my fault that I disappeared before you came back. Mrs Welsby asked me to take charge of a little girl, and sent me off in a cab.”

”Humph!” exclaimed Mrs Welsby's brother dryly. ”What a comfort it would be if people attended to their own business in this world! And were you sorry, Hope? Were you disappointed?”

”I cried,” said Hope simply; and once again Ralph Merrilies looked round at the other occupants of the stalls and breathed a wish that they were at any other part of the world than just that inhabited by Hope and himself.

At the conclusion of the interval Avice came back to her seat, and looking shyly around, found the answer to her question in two flushed, radiant faces.

”I'm so glad, Hope!” she whispered, pressing her cousin's hand beneath the shelter of that useful programme. ”It is just what I wanted. I helped you a little, didn't I? I asked him on purpose.”

”I shall love you for it all my life,” said Hope shyly.

”So shall I,” said Ralph; ”but--why didn't you do it sooner?”

Two hours later Hope ascended the stairs leading to the little flat, having dismissed an unwilling lover who had been anxious to introduce himself to his future sisters-in-law and fix the date of his wedding without a moment's delay. She tried hard to control her features as she entered the dining-room, and to look less ridiculously happy, but it was of no avail. The girls gaped at her in astonishment as she stood blus.h.i.+ng and smiling before them, and Madge cried severely:

”What is the matter! You look mightily pleased with yourself, my dear.

What mischief have _you_ been up to this afternoon?”

”Please,” said Hope humbly, ”I've been getting engaged!” and the scene which followed approached delirium in its excitement.

”And to think that I did not even know his name!” Philippa exclaimed when a hundred questions had been asked and answered, and Hope had been kissed and hugged to her heart's content. ”You _were_ quiet about it!

How did you manage to get along without some one to comfort you all these long months?”

”Theo knew,” said Hope; and at that a little frown showed itself on Philippa's forehead. It was a blow to her vanity to find that another had been chosen before herself, and though she made no comment, she was filled with a yearning for a closer sympathy and appreciation than she received in the home circle.

”Sometimes I feel as if I had come to the end of my work,” she said wistfully to the Hermit when he came upstairs during the evening to congratulate the bride-elect. ”When Barney goes abroad and Hope marries we shall be a very small family, and Theo is growing so clever at housekeeping. When I was ill they got on quite well without me. It seems as if the time had come when I was no longer needed. It makes me feel quite sad!”

”You must not feel that. Er--er--_fresh_ duties may arise,” stammered the Hermit in consolation.

Madge looked at them across the room, and dropped her sagacious chin.

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