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.”