“Oh, run me off my legs! I must be rol!ed-up, or put a pistol to my head: I can’t decide which fate to choose.”
She laughed. “How sorry I am! Freddy, only fancy! There was a horse running today called Mandarin! And Jack laid me odds it would not win! So absurd of him, for how could it help but win, with my dear Buckhaven on his way to China?”
Freddy, who was inclined to view her sudden interest in the Turf with disapprobation, was just about to state his opinion in a few simple, brotherly words when he was interrupted by Miss Charing, who said, with a great deal of vivacity: “Oh, Jack, I must show you what Freddy has given me! See! Are they not pretty? The very ornaments above all others I so much wished foV!”
Mr. Westruther put up his glass to look at the earrings. Nothing could have been blander than the tone he used to express his admiration of the trinkets, but Kitty was quick to perceive a flicker of surprise in his eyes, and was satisfied that whatever suspicions he might nourish she had at least puzzled him.
The tea-tray was brought in just then. Meg pressed Mr. Westruther to stay long enough to drink a cup with them. and Mr. Westruther, at his most provoking, said: “Do you think I dare? I have the oddest feeling that Freddy wishes me to go away. I had no notion of his being so strict a brother! My dear coz, I do trust that the queer times I choose for paying visits have not misled you into thinking that my intentions are dishonourable?”
“Good gracious!” cried Miss Charing, much diverted. “As though he could be so stupid! I am persuaded you might visit at any hour you pleased, and the only thing anyone would say is, Oh, if is only Jack!”
She then wished that she had held her tongue, for Mr. Westruther smiled approvingly at her, and said: “Well done, Kitty!”
He then proceeded, to her discomfiture, to enquire when he must set about the task of buying his wedding-gift, and, when she told him that the date of the ceremony was not yet decided, said: “Ah, exactly so! I was forgetting! The engagement is not immediately to be announced, is it? I wish you will tell me why you are keeping it a secret! I have been racking my brain to hit upon the reason, without the smallest success!”
Mr. Standen, somewhat to Kitty’s surprise, came unexpectedly to the rescue. “Measles,” he said. “M’mother means to give a dress-party for Kit. Can’t do it now. Better to wait a few weeks.”
“Of course!” said Mr. Westruther. “How could I be so bird-witted? And where do you mean to spend the honeymoon?”