Just when they were nearing the outskirts of Branksome, Kathleen dismounted suddenly and said:
“I suppose you’ll be surprized when I tell you I’m engaged to be married?”
“Are you?” faltered Michael; and the road swam before him.
“At least I’m only engaged secretly, because my fiancé is poor. He’s coming down soon. I’d like you to meet him.”
“I should like to meet him very much,” said Michael politely.
“You won’t tell anybody what I’ve told you?”
“Good Lord, no. Perhaps I might be of some use,” said Michael. “You know, in arranging meetings.”
“Eh, you’re a nice boy,” exclaimed Kathleen suddenly.
And Michael was not perfectly sure whether he thought himself a hero or a martyr.
Mrs. Fane was very much diverted by Michael’s account of Miss McDonnell’s accident, and teazed him gaily about Kathleen. Michael would assume an expression of mystery, as if indeed he had been entrusted with the dark secrets of a young woman’s mind; but the more mysterious he looked the more his mother laughed. In his own heart he cultivated assiduously his devotion, and regretted most poignantly that each new blouse and each chosen evening-dress was not for him. He used to watch Kathleen at dinner, and depress himself with the imagination of her spirit roaming out over the broad Midlands to meet her lover. He never made the effort to conjure up the lover, but preferred to picture him and Kathleen gathering like vague shapes upon the immeasurable territories of the soul.