“No, I will not,” she said crossly. “But it is the most infamous thing! When I see your brother—if ever I do see him again, which very likely I shall not as I dare say I shall soon be found with my throat cut from ear to ear!—I shall have something to say to him! Oh, when I think of the hideous case in which I am, and all through his crazy schemes which he has the effrontery to say are very sensible, I could—I could go into strong hysterics!”
He laughed. “Ay! You will have a spasm, I dare say, like one of my sisters’ governesses! But this is no time to be funning, Cousin!”
“Funning!”
“Now, be serious! Oh, Cousin Elinor, did you ever suppose—when you were quite young, I mean, in the schoolroom—that you would one day find yourself pitted against French agents?”
“No, Nicky, I did not. Nothing that has happened to me during the past week did I expect, even when I was in the schoolroom—where I very much wish I was now!”
“I am persuaded you do not! Why, how could you? But the thing is, what will Francis do now?”
“That thought has been occupying my mind this past hour.”—’
“He is such a poor-spirited fellow, you know, that I do not at all believe that he will attempt anything of a violent nature. I wish he would!”
“Yes, I am sure you do.”
“No,” said Nicky, unheeding. “If Ned is right, and he is indeed a dangerous fellow—but I own I cannot believe that a fellow that prefers cats to dogs and will not stir without he has his smelling salts with him can be worth a button!—but if it is so indeed, then I’ll swear he will go to work in some devilish cunning way you and I would never think of!”