“I can’t guess any more, Lalage. I really can’t. You’ll have to tell me what it was.”
“He said he’d get married with pleasure.”
“But not to Miss Battersby. I’m beginning to see now. Who is the fortunate lady?”
“Me,” said Lalage.
“Good heavens, Lalage! You don’t mean to say you’re going to marry the Archdeacon?”
“You’re as bad as he was,” said Lalage angrily. “I won’t have such horrid things said to me. I don’t see why I should be insulted by every one I meet. I wish I hadn’t told you. I ought not to have told you. I ought to have gone on looking for your mother until I found her.”
I was immensely, unreasonably relieved. The idea of Lalage marrying the Archdeacon had been a severe shock to me.
“The Archdeacon’s proposal——” I said. “By the way, you couldn’t possibly have been mistaken about it, could you? He really did?”
Lalage blushed hotly.
“He did,” she said, “really.”