“Go away if she does,” said Freddy.
“Oh, Freddy, would you dare?” .she asked, laughing a little.
“No question of daring: easy thing to do!”
“Freddy, she would be as mad as fire!” said Kitty, awed by the very thought.
But the practical Mr. Standen refused to be intimidated. “Wouldn’t make any odds to us if she was. Shouldn’t be there to see it,” he pointed out. “No need to be in a quake: I won’t let her frighten you.”
This unexpected sangfroid greatly impressed Miss Charing, but she could not be sorry that it was not put to the test. They found the Countess wreathed in smiles, arch felicitations to Freddy and broad compliments to Kitty issuing smoothly from between her thin, painted lips. Kitty was even permitted to kiss her ladyship’s cheek; and learned, with incredulity, that nothing had more pleased the Countess than the news of her engagement.
While his mother was overwhelming Kitty with her goodwill, Dolphinton, having acquired a grip on Freddy’s coat, was subjecting it to a series of tugs. Freddy, a wary eye on his aunt, was at first unconscious of this attempt to attract his attention, but when the tugs became imperative they attracted it to rather more purpose that Lord Dolphinton desired. “Stop it, Dolph!” he said indignantly. “First time I’ve had this coat on, and between the pair of you, you and Kit—” He paused, meeting his cousin’s anguished look of entreaty, and said: “Oh, very well! What’s the matter, old fellow?”
“Never told me you was bringing Kitty to town!” said Dolphinton imploringly. “Of course I didn’t! Why should I?” replied Freddy.
“He never told me!” said Dolphinton, addressing his parent.
She laughed, but in a way (as Miss Charing later told Mr. Standen) that boded ill for him. “Good God, Foster, what is that to the purpose? I wish you will strive to be a little less foolish! And so you are staying with dear Margaret, Kitty? Such a sweet creature, but perhaps not quite the person to take care of you! Naughty girl! Why did you not come to me? I am sure, if I have begged poor Uncle Matthew once to send you to me for a season, I have done so fifty times! I promise you, I grudge you to Margaret! It was always the wish of my heart to bring out a daughter!”