Her aunt smiled patiently. "Perhaps you will allow me to say without interruptions what I was going to say. I am willing to make every allowance for you, remembering that you have been brought up in a wild island in the south of Italy, and remembering that your poor father had odd notions about the education of young girls. But you are old enough to realize that Spaborough is not Sirene, and that to come back at two o'clock in the morning after spending the whole night sailing about with a young man on the open sea is not a very kind way of showing your affection for your relations, who have been only too anxious to do everything on their side to help you. You cannot complain of the warmth of your welcome in England, and you must admit that your Uncle Hector and I showed ourselves ready to do all we could to rescue you from the condition in which you found yourself after your father's death. I do not wish to say too much about Mr. Vibart's conduct. I can only express my surprise that Sir John Vibart's nephew should so absolutely deceive us in this way. And I blame Cousin Edith greatly. Please do not think that I have not already spoken to her very severely for the part she played in what I can only call a vulgar intrigue. She should, of course, have let me know at once that you and this young man had made each other's acquaintance at a railway station. The idea of it! I should have thought that your natural nice-minded feelings, if not your conscience, would have told you that casual conversation with young men at railway stations is not the way in which young girls in your position behave."
"I don't see any difference between speaking to a young man at a railway station and speaking to a young man at a golf club," Jasmine argued.
"Please do not add to your faults by being rude," Lady Grant begged. "Your rudeness only shows that you are, as I suspected, insensible to kindness. I have had so much ingratitude in the course of my various charities from all sorts and conditions of people whom I have tried to help that I no longer expect gratitude. But if I do not expect gratitude I certainly do not expect rudeness. I do not wish to recapitulate what your uncle has done for you; but I hope that when you come to yourself and think over what he has done for you you will realize how much there has been. Who was it sent you your fare from Sirene to Spaborough? Your uncle. Who was it, when you lost your season ticket before you had even used it once, bought you another one? Your uncle. Who was it that was so glad to give you an opportunity of learning the typewriter? Your uncle. Who was it that did his utmost to get us the best view of the fireworks yesterday evening? Your uncle. Finally, who was it, when the servants had gone to bed and the house was locked up, rang the bell in Hargreaves' room? Your uncle. I shall not go on, Jasmine, because I see by your face that you are hardening your heart. Well, luckily you have other uncles and aunts who have come forward to help you. I have just telegraphed to your Aunt Cuckoo at Hampstead to find out if she will be ready to receive you to-morrow. And although I think that you deserve that she should be told of your behaviour here, I am not going to tell her anything about it. I am not going to say a single word to prejudice your Aunt Cuckoo against you. But I most earnestly beg you, my dear Jasmine, to behave a little differently in Hampstead. Your Uncle Hector and I, who have daughters of our own, will always understand girls better than your Uncle Eneas or your Aunt Cuckoo can. Frankly, I do not think you will enjoy yourself as much in Hampstead as you have enjoyed yourself here, or as you might have enjoyed yourself here, if you had not displayed such a wilful spirit. What puzzles me is your unwillingness to make friends with Lettice and Pamela. It cannot be their fault, because they are friends with everybody. Even Mr. Vibart, who must be almost without any decent feelings of any kind whatsoever, liked Lettice and Pamela. Well, I am glad we have had this little explanation. When next you come to stay with us—for although at present your uncle is so much annoyed at being woken up last night that he has said quite positively that he will never have you to stay with us again, I am sure, knowing his goodness as I do, that he will ask you—when next you come to stay with us, I say, perhaps in London, I hope you won't go sailing about with young men half through the night. Of course you would not be able to do any actual sailing in London, but I mean the equivalent of sailing, like riding about on the outside of omnibuses at all hours. I fear that in your present hardened mood nothing can touch you, but I think that at least you might express your sorrow at making poor Spot so ill."
"Is Spot ill?" asked Jasmine.
"He is not ill any longer," said her aunt. "But you know how careful I am about his diet. Apparently he found one of those fish which you left lying about in the hall and was sick seven times this morning."
The explanation was over. The next morning Jasmine left Strathspey House, and late that afternoon was met at King's Cross by her Aunt Cuckoo. Cousin Edith shook her head a great deal at Jasmine's disgrace, but she was so glad to see the last of her that she could not resist waving her handkerchief to the departing car. As for Mr. Vibart, he called five times during the day, and every time Hargreaves, thinking of her apron, was glad to be authorized to inform him with cold politeness that nobody was at home.
Chapter Five
JASMINE's first experience of being succoured by rich relatives might have discouraged her from expecting a happy result from the second. Yet, although the Eneas Grants would be as much her patrons as the Hector Grants, there was something in the sound of 'Aunt Cuckoo' that suggested to her mind the anticipation of a positively more congenial atmosphere. It showed considerable elasticity to feel even subconsciously cheerful on this journey, with the weather south of York becoming overcast and a hundred miles of London breaking into a drench of rain, which turned to dripping fog on the outskirts of the city and made King's Cross an inferno of sodden gloom. In the first confusion of alighting from the train, Jasmine felt like a twig precipitated toward the drain of a gutter. In this din, in this damp and dusky chill made more obscure by fog and engine smoke and human breath, it hardly seemed worth while to have an opinion of one's own upon destination. Swept along toward the exits, Jasmine would soon have found herself astray in the phantasmagoria of the great squalid streets outside had she not been rescued by a porter whose kindly interest and paternal manner persuaded her to consider with due attention the advantages and disadvantages of the various routes from King's Cross to Hampstead.
A complicated but economical itinerary had no sooner been settled than a woman glided up to Jasmine with what in the press of the traffic seemed an almost ghostly ease of movement and asked in an appropriately toneless voice if she were her niece.
Jasmine, without thinking that amid the incalculable permutations and combinations of city life it was at least as probable that she was not this woman's niece as that she was, replied without hesitation that she was.