Part 21 (1/2)
”I daresay he is nicer,” says Kit, artfully. Then she tucks her arm into her sister's, and looks fondly in her face. ”He must have said _something_ to you,” she says. ”Darling love, why won't you tell your own Kitten all about it?”
A little smile quivers round Monica's lips.
”Well, I will, then,” she says. In her heart I believe she is glad to confide in somebody, and why not in Kit the sympathetic? ”First, he made me feel he was delighted to meet me again. Then he asked me to go for a walk _alone_ with him; then he said he was--my lover!”
”Oh!” says Kit, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her small face with delight.
”And then he asked me to meet him again to-day with _you_.”
”With _me_! I think that was very delicate of him.” She is evidently flattered by this notice of her existence. Plainly, if not _the_ rose in his estimation, she is to be treated with the respect due to the rose's sister. It is all charming! she feels wafted upwards, and incorporated, as it were, in a real love affair. Yes, she will be the guardian angel of these thwarted lovers.
”And what did you say?” she asks, with a gravity that befits the occasion.
”I refused,” in a low tone.
”To meet him?”
”Yes.”
”With _me_?” says this dragon of propriety.
”Yes.”
”But why?”
”Because of Aunt Priscilla.” And then she tells her all about Aunt Priscilla's speech in the carriage, and her reply to it.
”I never heard such a rubbishy request in my life!” says the younger Miss Beresford, disdainfully. ”It is really beneath notice. And when all is told it means nothing. As _I_ read it, it seems you have only promised to forget you ever spoke to Mr. Desmond: you haven't promised never to speak to him again.” Thus the little Jesuit.
”That was not what Aunt Priscilla meant.”
”If she meant anything, it was folly. And, after all, what is this dreadful quarrel between us and the Desmonds all about? It lives in Aunt Priscilla's brain. I'll tell you what I think, Monica. I think Aunt Priscilla was once in love with old Mr. Desmond, and mother cut her out; and now, just because she has been disappointed in her own love-affair, she wants to thwart you in yours.”
”She doesn't, indeed. Any one but Mr. Desmond might show me attention, and she would be pleased. She was quite glad when Mr. Ryde--well--when he made himself agreeable to me.”
”From all you told me of him, he must have made himself _dis_-agreeable.
I'm perfectly certain I should hate Mr. Ryde, and I'm equally sure I should like Mr. Desmond. What did he say to you, darling, when you refused to meet him even with _me_?” She lays great stress on this allusion to herself.
”He said I might do as I chose, but that he would meet me again, whether I liked it or not, and _soon_!”
”Now, that's the lover for _me_!” says Kit, enthusiastically. ”No giving in, no s.h.i.+lly-shallying, but downright determination. He's an honest man, and we all know what an honest man is,--'the n.o.blest work of G.o.d.'
I'm certain he will keep his word, and I do hope I shall be with you when next you meet him, as I should like to make friends with him.”
At this moment it occurs to Monica that she never before knew how very, _very_ fond she is of Kit.
”Oh, well, I don't suppose I _can_ see him again for ever so long,” she says. But even as the words pa.s.s her lips she knows she does not mean them, and remembers with a little throb of pleasure that he had said he would see her again _soon_. _Soon!_ why, that might mean this evening,--now,--_any_ moment! Instinctively she lifts her head and looks around her, and there, just a little way off, is a young man coming quickly towards her, bareheaded and in evening dress.
”I told you how it would be,” says Kit, in a nervous whisper, taking almost a bit out of poor Monica's arm in her excitement. ”Oh, when I have a lover I hope he will be like _he_.”