"Did you quarrel?"
She smiled. "No. I'm never going to quarrel any more. He'll be back here in no time—and have another try most likely! You see, I'm going into training—a course of amiability, so as to be ready for Lady Sarah." She sprang to her feet. "Do you know that this is a most exciting evening?"
"Oh, yes, I can imagine that. I've had a long talk with Lacey."
"Have you? Isn't he splendid, poor boy? You should have seen his face when I sent him to her! He thought of nothing but her then—but I like him for thinking of his father now. And I've brought it off, Austin! He thinks there may be just a pretty wedding present—a trousseau check, perhaps!" She came up to me. "This is a good thing I've done—to set against the rest."
"I think it is. But the boy feels horribly guilty."
She nodded. "I know—and so does poor Margaret. I'm afraid she's crying up in her own den—and that's not right for to-night, is it?"
"Love's joy and woe can be simultaneous as well as alternate, I'm afraid."
"I can't stand it much longer." She looked at the clock. "He's to send word over to-night, if he can—by a groom—how he's got on—breaking the news, you know. Let's go out into the garden and wait for this important messenger. But, whatever he says, I believe I shall have to put my oar in to-morrow. I can't have my poor Margaret like this much longer. She knows now why she was taken to Mr. Alison's, and does nothing but declare that she behaved atrociously!"
We were a silent pair of watchers. Jenny's whole soul seemed absorbed in waiting. She spoke only once—in words which betrayed the line of her thoughts. "If I'd thought it would be as bad as this—for her, I mean—I believe I'd have brought her here under another name, in spite of everything, and perpetrated a fraud! I could have told them after the wedding!"
I was afraid that she would have been quite capable of such villainy where Margaret was in question, and not altogether averse from a dénoûment so dramatic.