"Come, dear Lady Maria," said Kitty. "I shall take care of you. I will give you a seat in my chaise; we shall drive home together."
"Certainly, my dear, certainly," mumbled the Dowager. "Who is that remarkably agreeable person?" she requested to know of Stafford in her prodigiously audible whisper. "My dear," she turned again to Kitty, "I like you wonderfully. I cannot quite remember your name, my dear, but we will go home together."
"Dear, dear Lady Maria!" cried Mistress Kitty, honey sweet. "My Lord Verney, give your arm to your revered relative—mind you lead her carefully," she said, with all the imps in her eyes dancing, "for I fear Mr. Stafford's cordial has proved a little staggering—after the night air! And warn her ladyship's attendant to be ready to escort us back in my carriage."
Then, taking advantage of Sir Jasper's absence—that gentleman might even then be heard cursing his sleepy servants in the yard—Mistress Kitty ran over to Lady Standish, who stood wistful and apart at the inglenook.
"My dear," she murmured, "the game is now in your hands."
"Ah, no!" returned the other. "Oh, Kitty, you have been an evil counsellor!"
"Is this your gratitude?" retorted Kitty, and pinched her friend with vicious little fingers. "Why, woman, your husband never thought so much of you in his life as he does to-day! Why, there has never been so much fuss made over you since you were born. Are these your thanks?"
"Oh, for the moment when I can fly to his bosom and tell him all! My foolish endeavour to make him jealous, my sinful pretence that he had a rival in my heart!"
"What?" exclaimed the widow, and her whisper took all the emphasis of a shriek. "Fly to his bosom? Then I have done with you! Bring him to his knees you mean, madam. Tell him all? Tell him all, forsooth, let him know you have made a fool of him, all for nothing; let him think that you had never had an idea beyond pining for his love; that no other man ever thought of you, that he has never had a rival, never will have one, that you are merely his own uninteresting Julia whom nobody wants. Why, Lady Standish, 'tis laying down the arms when the battle is yours. Sheer insanity! Prodigious, prodigious!" cried Mistress Kitty. "Is it possible that you and I are of the same sex?"
Bewildered, yet half convinced, Lady Standish listened and wondered.