"It's Mum," said Erebus.
Quick as thought the Terror dropped behind her, slipped off the bag of booty, and thrust it into a gorse-bush.
"And—and—it's the Cruncher with her!" cried Erebus in a tone in which disgust outrang surprise.
"Of all the sickening things! The Cruncher!" cried the Terror, echoing her disgust. "What's he come down again for?"
They paused; then went on their way with gloomy faces to meet the approaching pair.
The gentleman whom they called the "Cruncher," and who from their tones of disgust had so plainly failed to win their young hearts was Captain Baster of the Twenty-fourth Hussars; and they called him the Cruncher on account of the vigor with which he plied his large, white, prominent teeth.
They had not gone five yards when Wiggins said in a tone of superiority: "I know why he's come down."
"Why?" said the Terror quickly.
"He's come down to marry your mother," said Wiggins.
"What?" cried the Twins with one voice, one look of blank consternation; and they stopped short.
"How dare you say a silly thing like that?" cried Erebus fiercely.
"I didn't say it," protested Wiggins. "Mrs. Blenkinsop said it."
"That silly old gossip!" cried Erebus.
"And Mrs. Morton said it, too," said Wiggins. "They came to tea yesterday and talked about it. I was there: there was a plum cake—one of those rich ones from Springer's at Rowington. And they said it would be such a good thing for both of you because he's so awfully rich: the Terror would go to Eton; and you'd go to a good school and get a proper bringing-up and grow up a lady, after all—"
"I wouldn't go! I should hate it!" cried Erebus.
"Yes; they said you wouldn't like wholesome discipline," said the faithful reporter. "And they didn't seem to think your mother would like it either—marrying the Cruncher."
"Like it? She wouldn't dream of it—a bounder like that!" said the Terror.
"I don't know—I don't know—if she thought it would be good for us—she'd do anything for us—you know she would!" cried Erebus, wringing her hands in anxious fear.
The Terror thrust his hands into his pockets; his square chin stuck out in dogged resolution; a deep frown furrowed his brow; and his face was flushed.
"This must be stopped," he said through his set teeth.
"But how?" said Erebus.
"We'll find a way. It's war!" said the Terror darkly.
Wiggins spurned the earth joyfully: "I'm on your side," he said. "I'm a trusty ally. He called me Freckles."
"Come on," said the Terror. "We'd better face him."
They walked firmly to meet the detested enemy. As they drew near, the Terror's face recovered its flawless serenity; but Erebus was scowling still.
From twenty yards away Captain Baster greeted them in a rich hearty voice: "How's Terebus and the Error; and how's Freckles?" he cried, and laughed heartily at his own delightful humor.
The Twins greeted him with a cold, almost murderous politeness; Wiggins shook hands with Mrs. Dangerfield very warmly and left out Captain Baster.
"I'm always pleased to see you with the Twins, Wiggins," said Mrs. Dangerfield with her delightful smile. "I know you keep them out of mischief."
"It's generally all over before I come," said Wiggins somewhat glumly; and of a sudden it occurred to him to spurn the earth.
"I've not had that kiss yet, Terebus. I'm going to have it this time I'm here," said Captain Baster playfully; and he laughed his rich laugh.
"Are you?" said Erebus through her clenched teeth; and she gazed at him with the eyes of hate.
They turned; and Mrs. Dangerfield said, "You'll come to tea with us, Wiggins?"
"Thank you very much," said Wiggins; and he spurned the earth. As he alighted on it once more, he added. "Tea at other people's houses is so much nicer than at home. Don't you think so, Terror?"
"I always eat more—somehow," said the Terror with a grave smile.
They walked slowly across the common, a protecting twin on either side of Mrs. Dangerfield; and Captain Baster, in the strong facetious vein, enlivened the walk with his delightful humor. The gallant officer was the very climax of the florid, a stout, high-colored, black-eyed, glossy-haired young man of twenty-eight, with a large tip-tilted nose, neatly rounded off in a little knob forever shiny. The son of the famous pickle millionaire, he had enjoyed every advantage which great wealth can bestow, and was now enjoying heartily a brave career in a crack regiment. The crack regiment, cold, phlegmatic, unappreciative, was not enjoying it. To his brother officers he was known as Pallybaster, a name he had won for himself by his frequent remark, "I'm a very pally man." It was very true: it was difficult, indeed, for any one whom he thought might be useful to him, to avoid his friendship, for, in addition to all the advantages which great wealth bestows, he enjoyed an uncommonly thick skin, an armor-plate impenetrable to snubs.
All the way to Colet House, he maintained a gay facetious flow of personal talk that made Erebus grind her teeth, now and again suffused the face of Wiggins with a flush of mortification that dimmed his freckles, and wrinkled Mrs. Dangerfield's white brow in a distressful frown. The Terror, serene, impassive, showed no sign of hearing him; his mind was hard at work on this very serious problem with which he had been so suddenly confronted. More than once Erebus countered a witticism with a sharp retort, but with none sharp enough to pierce the rhinocerine hide of the gallant officer. Once this unbidden but humorous guest was under their roof, the laws of hospitality denied her even this relief. She could only treat him with a steely civility. The steeliness did not check the easy flow of his wit.
He looked oddly out of his place in the drawing-room of Colet House; he was too new for it. The old, worn, faded, carefully polished furniture, for the most part of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, seemed abashed in the presence of his floridness. It seemed to demand the setting of spacious, ornately glittering hotels. Mrs. Dangerfield liked him less in her own drawing-room than anywhere. When her eyes rested on him in it, she was troubled by a curious feeling that only by some marvelous intervention of providence had he escaped calling in a bright plaid satin tie.
The fact that he was not in his proper frame, though he was not unconscious of it, did not trouble Captain Baster. Indeed, he took some credit to himself for being so little contemptuous of the shabby furniture. In a high good humor he went on shining and shining all through tea; and though at the end of it his luster was for a while dimmed by the discovery that he had left his cigarette-case at the inn and there were no cigarettes in the house, he was presently shining again. Then the Twins and Wiggins rose and retired firmly into the garden.
They came out into the calm autumn evening with their souls seething.
"He's a pig—and a beast! We can't let Mum marry him! We must stop it!" cried Erebus.
"It's all very well to say 'must.' But you know what Mum is: if she thinks a thing is for our good, do it she will," said the Terror gloomily.
"And she never consults us—never!" cried Erebus.
"Only when she's a bit doubtful," said the Terror.
"Then she's not doubtful now. She hasn't said a word to us about it," said Erebus.
"That's what looks so bad. It looks as if she'd made up her mind already; and if she has, it's no use talking to her," said the Terror yet more gloomily.
They were silent; and the bright eyes of Wiggins moved expectantly backward and forward from one to the other. He preserved a decorous