“Don’t answer his letters, if you please. I have no doubt your Chichesters are excellent people, but a correspondence between you and this young paragon is most unsuitable.”
The colour flamed into Sydney’s face. “I don’t know what you mean, Cousin St. Quentin,” she cried hotly, “and Hugh will think me so—so horrid if I never answer his letters!”
The cynical smile deepened round his mouth. “The sooner you understand that playing at brother and sister is out of the question now the better,” he said quietly.
Sydney set her teeth to keep the tears back and stared hard into the fire. She would not cry before St. Quentin, but his tone, even more than his words, made her desperately hot and angry. There was silence in the room for full five minutes: then the footman came in with a note for Lord St. Quentin.
He opened it, and read it half aloud with a sneer.
“What’s this ... ‘Miss Lisle ... help in the Sunday School ... small class ...’ (confound the fellow’s insolence!) ‘subject of course to my approval ...’ (He won’t get that, I can tell him!)”——
“Oh, Cousin St. Quentin!” Sydney cried, springing to her feet, “is it about my class in the Sunday School? I told Mr. Seaton I should like to take one. You will let me, won’t you?”
“Nonsense! You know nothing about it!” he assured her. “You wouldn’t like it, and I don’t choose you to be always after parsons. Sit down there at the writing-table—you’ll find pens and paper—and decline his offer, please!”
“But I promised that I would, Cousin St. Quentin!”
“Well, now you find you can’t! Write—‘Dear Sir.’”