I wonder if Grace will marry him—or if she will marry Cheneston. Sometimes I think he will forget he is angry with her, and he will tell her how the mistaken idea of our "engagement" arose, and why he let it prosper—there is a frightful lot of the open-hearted, impetuous schoolboy about Cheneston.
I don't think he is happy.
If he made a clean breast of it to Grace we should have to break off our supposed "engagement," and mother would have to take me away—father couldn't leave.
I can imagine what my life would be!
I think they would pack me off as governess or companion to someone.
I know if I don't marry by a certain age that will be my fate. Mother was perfectly honest about it—before Cheneston came along; now I am her dear little daughter, she looks at me in pleased bewilderment sometimes, as if wondering how so homely a hunter could have achieved such a sensational capture.
They have never tried to equip me in any way. I was never given the opportunity to acquire any accomplishments. Old Giovanni taught me to sing—for love of his art.
Mother laughed when she heard he was teaching me—she laughed because he was a funny, broken-down old Italian singer, and the boys used to pay him five shillings a night out of mess funds to come up and play to them in the evening when the regiment was stationed at Gilesworth and there was nothing on earth to do.
Giovanni was a great teacher, and to him I owe to-night.
I don't think I'll ever forget to-night.