Just then Dorothy says,—
"Shut it up tight again, Mona, and let me try to open it." And, Mona having closed the panel again and jumped down off the chair, Doatie takes her place, and, supported by Nicholas, opens and shuts the secret door again and again to her heart's content.
"It is quite simple: there is no deception," says Mr. Darling, addressing the room, with gracious encouragement in his tone, shrugging his shoulders and going through all the airs and graces that belong to the orthodox French showman.
"It is quite necessary you should know all about it," says Nicholas, in a low tone, to Dorothy, whom he is holding carefully, as though under the mistaken impression that young women if left on chairs without support invariably fall off them. "As the future mistress here, you ought to be up to every point connected with the old place."
Miss Darling blushes. It is so long since she has given way to this weakness that now she does it warmly and generously, as though to make up for other opportunities neglected. She scrambles down off the chair, and, going up to Mona, surprises that heroine of the hour by bestowing upon her a warm though dainty hug.
"It is all your doing. How wretched we should have been had we never seen you!" she says, with tears of gratitude in her eyes.
Altogether it is a very exciting and pleasurable moment.
The panel is as good as a toy to them. They all open it by turns, and wonder over it, and rejoice in it. But Geoffrey, taking Mona aside, says curiously, and a little gravely,—
"Tell me why you hesitated in your speech a while ago. Talking of Rodney's giving you the will, you said he offered to give it you if—if——What did the 'if' mean?"
"Come over to the window, and I will tell you," says Mrs. Geoffrey. "He—he—you must take no notice of it, Geoffrey, but he wanted to kiss me. He offered me the will for one kiss, and——"