“He didn’t suspect?” Meg said anxiously.
“No, of course he did not!”
“What an escape!” shuddered Meg. “I have been quite sick with apprehension, for he doesn’t like it when I go out with Jack, and if he knew of this I daresay he would tell Papa, and you may depend upon it I should be packed off to stay with Lady Buckhaven on the instant! I must say, it was excessively handsome of you not to have told him, Kitty!”
“As though I would do anything so shabby!” exclaimed Kitty. “But whatever possessed you to go to the Opera House? How could Jack have taken you there? I saw at once that it was not at all the sort of party one ought to go to, and surely he must have known that!”
“Oh, yes! He said that Freddy would have his blood, if he came to hear of it, but there was not the least harm, you know! I have always so wished to go to one of those masquerades, and of course Buckhaven will never take me, and nor will Freddy, so I teased Jack to! He took very good care of me, I assure you, and it is not as though I was unmasked. We came away at midnight, but I should like to have remained, for I thought it was very good sport, though, of course, shockingly vulgar! Did you enjoy it?”
Kitty shuddered. “It was quite the worst evening I have ever spent!” she said. “I was never more thankful in my life than when I saw Freddy!”
“Was he very much vexed?” enquired Meg. “He has such stuffy notions!”
“No, no, he was so kind that I almost burst into tears! And he might have reproached me! I do think,” said Kitty fervently, “that Freddy is the most truly chivalrous person imaginable!”
Freddy’s sister, regarding her with awe, opened her mouth, shut it again, swallowed, and managed to say, though in a faint voice: “Do you, indeed?”
“Yes, and a great deal more to the purpose than all the people one was taught to revere, like Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad, and Young Lochinvar, and—and that kind of man! I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons, but you may depend upon it none of those knight-errants would, be able to rescue one from a social fix, and you must own, Meg, that one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons! And as for riding off with one in the middle of a party, which I have always thought must have been extremely uncomfortable, and not at all the sort of thing one would wish to happen to one—What is the matter?”