FullReads

“What were you lying awake about? Your new champion, Uncle George?” I asked her.

She owned that it was. “Don’t you see, Mrs. Daly, mamma doesn’t leave room for the possibility of my refusing him. And if I do refuse him, he’ll simply take me back to England, and then, between him and mamma, and all of them, I don’t know what may happen.”

“Kitty,” I said, “no girl who has just escaped from one unhappy engagement is going to walk straight into another with her eyes wide open. I won’t believe you could be so foolish as that.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, “what the pressure will be at home–in all love and kindness, of course. And you don’t know Uncle George. He is so sure that I need him, he’ll force me to take him. He’ll take me back to England in any case.”

“And would you not like to go, Kitty?”

“Ah, wouldn’t I! But not in that way.”

She sat up in her flannel camp-gown, and began to braid up her loosened hair.

“Kitty,” I commanded, “lie down. You are not to get up till luncheon.”

“I have a plan,” she said, “and I must see Cecil Harshaw; he must help me carry it out. There is no one else who can.”

“You have all day to see him in.”

“Not all day, Mrs. Daly. He must be ready to start to-morrow. Uncle George will reach Bisuka on the fifteenth, not later. Cecil must meet him there; first, to prepare him for Micky’s new arrangement, and second, to persuade him that he does not owe me an offer of marriage in consequence. Cecil will know how to manage it; he must know! I will not have any more of the Harshaws offering themselves as substitutes. It will be very strange if I cannot exist without them somehow.”

It struck me that the poor child’s boast was a little premature, as she seemed to be making rather free use of one of the substitutes still, as a shield against the others; but it was of a piece with the rest of the comedy. I kept her in bed till she had had a cup of tea; afterward she slept a little, and about noon she dressed herself and gave Cecil his audience. But first, at her request, I had possessed him with the main facts and given him an inkling of what was expected of him. His face changed; he looked as he did after his steeplechase the day I saw him first,–except that he was cleaner,–grave, excited, and resolved. He had taken the bit in his teeth. When substitute meets substitute in a cause like this! I would have left them to have their little talk by themselves, but Kitty signified peremptorily that she wished me to stay, with a flushed, appealing look that softened the nervous tension of her manner.

“I would do anything on earth for you, Kitty,” Cecil said most gently and fervently; “but don’t ask me to give advice–to Uncle George of all men–on a question of this kind–unless you will allow me to be perfectly frank.”

“It’s a family question,” said Kitty, ignoring his proviso.

“I think it would get to be a personal question very soon between Uncle George and me. No; I meddled in one family question not very long ago.”

“It’s very strange,” said Kitty restlessly, “if you can’t help me out of this in some way. I cannot be so disrespectful to him, the dear old gentleman! He ought not to be put in such a position, or I either. How would you like it if it were your father?”

Cecil reddened handsomely at this home thrust. “I’d have a deuce of a time to stop him if he took the notion, you know; it’s not exactly a son’s or a nephew’s business. There is only one way in which I can help you, Kitty. You must know that.”

He had struck a different key, and his face was all one blush to correspond with the new note in his voice. I think I never saw a manlier, more generous warmth of ardor and humility, or listened to words so simply uttered in such telling tones.