“Oh, you can get out of it cleverly, like all men; but you can’t hoodwink me. You shouldn’t have pretended to like Gertrude when you were really pulling a cord with Agatha. And she, too, pretending to flirt with Sir Charles — as if he would care twopence for her!”
Trefusis seemed a little disturbed. “I hope Miss Lindsay had no such — but she could not.”
“Oh, couldn’t she? You will soon see whether she had or not.”
“You misunderstood us, Lady Brandon; Miss Lindsay knows better. Remember, too, that this proposal of mine was quite unpremeditated. This morning I had no tender thoughts of anyone except one whom it would be improper to name.”
“Oh, that is all talk. It won’t do now.”
“I will talk no more at present. I must be off to the village to telegraph to my solicitor. If I meet Erskine I will tell him the good news.”
“He will be delighted. He thought, as we all did, that you were cutting him out with Gertrude.”
Trefusis smiled, shook his head, and, with a glance of admiring homage to Jane’s charms, went out. Jane was contemplating herself in the glass when a servant begged her to come and speak to Master Charles and Miss Fanny. She hurried upstairs to the nursery, where her boy and girl, disputing each other’s prior right to torture the baby, had come to blows. They were somewhat frightened, but not at all appeased, by Jane’s entrance. She scolded, coaxed, threatened, bribed, quoted Dr. Watts, appealed to the nurse and then insulted her, demanded of the children whether they loved one another, whether they loved mamma, and whether they wanted a right good whipping. At last, exasperated by her own inability to restore order, she seized the baby, which had cried incessantly throughout, and, declaring that it was doing it on purpose and should have something real to cry for, gave it an exemplary smacking, and ordered the others to bed. The boy, awed by the fate of his infant brother, offered, by way of compromise, to be good if Miss Wylie would come and play with him, a proposal which provoked from his jealous mother a box on the ear that sent him howling to his cot. Then she left the room, pausing on the threshold to remark that if she heard another sound from them that day, they might expect the worst from her. On descending, heated and angry, to the drawingroom, she found Agatha there alone, looking out of window as if the landscape were especially unsatisfactory this time.
“Selfish little beasts!” exclaimed Jane, making a miniature whirlwind with her skirts as she came in. “Charlie is a perfect little fiend. He spends all his time thinking how he can annoy me. Ugh! He’s just like his father.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said Sir Charles from the doorway.
Jane laughed. “I knew you were there,” she said. “Where’s Gertrude?”
“She has gone out,” said Sir Charles.
“Nonsense! She has only just come in from driving with me.”
“I do not know what you mean by nonsense,” said Sir Charles, chafing. “I saw her walking along the Riverside Road. I was in the village road, and she did not see me. She seemed in a hurry.”
“I met her on the stairs and spoke to her,” said Agatha, “but she didn’t hear me.”
“I hope she is not going to throw herself into the river,” said Jane. Then, turning to her husband, she added: “Have you heard the news?”
“The only news I have heard is from this paper,” said Sir Charles, taking out a journal and flinging it on the table. “There is a paragraph in it stating that I have joined some infernal Socialistic league, and I am told that there is an article in the ‘Times’ on the spread of Socialism, in which my name is mentioned. This is all due to Trefusis; and I think he has played me a most dishonorable trick. I will tell him so, too, when next I see him.”
“You had better be careful what you say of him before Agatha,” said Jane. “Oh, you need not be alarmed, Agatha; I know all about it. He told us in the library. We went out this morning — Gertrude and I — and when we came back we found Mr. Trefusis and Agatha talking very lovingly to one another on the conservatory steps, newly engaged.”
“Indeed!” said Sir Charles, disconcerted and displeased, but trying to smile. “I may then congratulate you, Miss Wylie?”
“You need not,” said Agatha, keeping her countenance as well as she could. “It was only a joke. At least it came about in a jest. He has no right to say that we are engaged.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Jane. “That won’t do, Agatha. He has gone off to telegraph to his solicitor. He is quite in earnest.”
“I am a great fool,” said Agatha, sitting down and twisting her hands perplexedly. “I believe I said something; but I really did not intend to. He surprised me into speaking before I knew what I was saying. A pretty mess I have got myself into!”
“I am glad you have been outwitted at last,” said Jane, laughing spitefully. “You never had any pity for me when I could not think of the proper thing to say at a moment’s notice.”
Agatha let the taunt pass unheeded. Her gaze wandered anxiously, and at last settled appealingly upon Sir Charles. “What shall I do?” she said to him.
“Well, Miss Wylie,” he said gravely, “if you did not mean to marry him you should not have promised. I don’t wish to be unsympathetic, and I know that it is very hard to get rid of Trefusis when he makes up his mind to act something out of you, but still—”
“Never mind her,” said Jane, interrupting him. “She wants to marry him just as badly as he wants to marry her. You would be preciously disappointed if he cried off, Agatha; for all your interesting reluctance.”
“That is not so, really,” said Agatha earnestly. “I wish I had taken time to think about it. I suppose he has told everybody by this time.”
“May we then regard it as settled?” said Sir Charles.
“Of course you may,” said Jane contemptuously.
“Pray allow Miss Wylie to speak for herself, Jane. I confess I do not understand why you are still in doubt — if you have really engaged yourself to him.”
“I suppose I am in for it,” said Agatha. “I feel as if there were some fatal objection, if I could only remember what it is. I wish I had never seen him.”
Sir Charles was puzzled. “I do not understand ladies’ ways in these matters,” he said. “However, as there seems to be no doubt that you and Trefusis are engaged, I shall of course say nothing that would make it unpleasant for him to visit here; but I must say that he has — to say the least — been inconsiderate to me personally. I signed a paper at his house on the implicit understanding that it was strictly private, and now he has trumpeted it forth to the whole world, and publicly associated my name not only with his own, but with those of persons of whom I know nothing except that I would rather not be connected with them in any way.”
“What does it matter?” said Jane. “Nobody cares twopence.”
“I care,” said Sir Charles angrily. “No sensible person can accuse me of exaggerating my own importance because I value my reputation sufficiently to object to my approval being publicly cited in support of a cause with which I have no sympathy.”
“Perhaps Mr. Trefusis has had nothing to do with it,” said Agatha. “The papers publish whatever they please, don’t they?”
“That’s right, Agatha,” said Jane maliciously. “Don’t let anyone speak ill of him.”
“I am not speaking ill of him,” said Sir Charles, before Agatha could retort. “It is a mere matter of feeling, and I should not have mentioned it had I known the altered relations between him and Miss Wylie.”
“Pray don’t speak of them,” said Agatha. “I have a mind to run away by the next train.”
Sir