"How did you hear of Kit's pudding?" asks Monica, looking keenly from [Brian] to Kit, and then back again.
"Oh!—the pudding," stammers Desmond.
"There! don't commit yourself," says Monica, in a tone that trembles. "Oh, Kit!"
Both culprits are afraid to look at her. Does the tremble mean tears, or anger, or what? Perhaps horror at their duplicity, or contempt. Is she hopelessly angered?
Then a suppressed sound reaches their ears, creating a fresh panic in their breasts. Is she positively choking with indignation? Cautiously, anxiously, they glance at her, and find, to their everlasting relief, that she is convulsed with laughter.
"When next you meditate forming a brilliant plot such as this," she says to Kit, "I think I should look out a more trustworthy accomplice if I were you."
"Catch me having a secret with him again," says Kit now her fears are appeased, turning wrathfully upon Desmond.
"I quite forgot all about it, I did, indeed," exclaims he, penitently. "Forgive me this time, and I'll promise never to do it again."
"And I'll promise you you shan't have the chance," says Kit, with fervor.
"Why was I to be deceived?" says Monica. "I think I have been very basely treated. If you, Kit, desired a clandestine meeting with Mr. Desmond, I don't see why I was to be drawn into it. And it was a stupid arrangement, too: two is company, three trumpery. I know, if I had a lover, I should prefer——"