Part 9 (2/2)

”How very rude!”

”I wonder. Or was it sensible?”

”No, Margaret, most rude.”

”In either case one can cla.s.s it as rea.s.suring.”

Mrs. Munt sighed. She was going back to Swanage on the morrow, just as her nieces were wanting her most. Other regrets crowded upon her: for instance, how magnificently she would have cut Charles if she had met him face to face. She had already seen him, giving an order to the porter--and very common he looked in a tall hat. But unfortunately his back was turned to her, and though she had cut his back, she could not regard this as a telling snub.

”But you will be careful, won't you?” she exhorted.

”Oh, certainly. Fiendishly careful.”

”And Helen must be careful, too.”

”Careful over what?” cried Helen, at that moment coming into the room with her cousin.

”Nothing” said Margaret, seized with a momentary awkwardness.

”Careful over what, Aunt Juley?”

Mrs. Munt a.s.sumed a cryptic air. ”It is only that a certain family, whom we know by name but do not mention, as you said yourself last night after the concert, have taken the flat opposite from the Mathesons--where the plants are in the balcony.”

Helen began some laughing reply, and then disconcerted them all by blus.h.i.+ng. Mrs. Munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed, ”What, Helen, you don't mind them coming, do you?” and deepened the blush to crimson.

”Of course I don't mind,” said Helen a little crossly. ”It is that you and Meg are both so absurdly grave about it, when there's nothing to be grave about at all.”

”I'm not grave,” protested Margaret, a little cross in her turn.

”Well, you look grave; doesn't she, Frieda?”

”I don't feel grave, that's all I can say; you're going quite on the wrong tack.”

”No, she does not feel grave,” echoed Mrs. Munt. ”I can bear witness to that. She disagrees--”

”Hark!” interrupted Fraulein Mosebach. ”I hear Bruno entering the hall.”

For Herr Liesecke was due at Wickham Place to call for the two younger girls. He was not entering the hall--in fact, he did not enter it for quite five minutes. But Frieda detected a delicate situation, and said that she and Helen had much better wait for Bruno down below, and leave Margaret and Mrs. Munt to finish arranging the flowers. Helen acquiesced. But, as if to prove that the situation was not delicate really, she stopped in the doorway and said:

”Did you say the Mathesons' flat, Aunt Juley? How wonderful you are!

I never knew that the name of the woman who laced too tightly was Matheson.”

”Come, Helen,” said her cousin.

”Go, Helen,” said her aunt; and continued to Margaret almost in the same breath: ”Helen cannot deceive me. She does mind.”

”Oh, hus.h.!.+” breathed Margaret. ”Frieda'll hear you, and she can be so tiresome.”

<script>