“No harm in that,” said Freddy. “In fact, good thing! Don’t mind telling you, Kit, that it’s his dangling after the Yalding widow that made me take fright. Bound to lead to trouble! Needn’t think old Annerwick won’t make a lot of dashed awkward enquiries, because that’s just what he will do. Anyone would!”
“Oh, Freddy, I fear you do not understand!” said Kitty unhappily, and began, in a halting voice, to tell him just what the Chevalier had said to her.
He listened to her attentively, but his comment, at the end of her recital, was not just what she had expected. “Do you mean to tell me the fellow said all this to you, Kit?” he demanded incredulously. “Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch! Why the deuce couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? French! Never knew such a set of gabsters!”
“I must own, I did rather think that myself,” she confessed. “Indeed, I was aghast to learn that he had disclosed the truth to Olivia.”
“I should think you would be!” he agreed. “No doing anything with such a gudgeon! Think she’ll spread the tale?”
“Oh, no, I am persuaded she would not! But only think of the pain she must have suffered!”
“No use thinking of that. Got enough to think about on our own account. Nothing for it but to pack the fellow off to France again, Kit. Dashed if I’ll have him causing you embarrassment! Devilish unpleasant situation, if the truth leaked out, y’know.”
“Oh, yes, and how shocking it would be if poor Lady Maria were to be taken-in, when I know the whole, and should have warned her! Only, how can I, Freddy?”
Rather alarmed, he said: “Lord, no! Now, for God’s sake, Kit, don’t you do anything buffle-headed! Only make bad worse! Got to think of a way to be rid of him. Daresay I shall hit on something.”
“Would he go, do you suppose, if you threatened him with exposure?” she asked doubtfully.