“An American?” cried Fanny. “Another! Well, Nevis is waking up. Are you thinking of buying an estate and planting?” she asked eagerly. “You don’t look as if you had rheumatism.”
Tay played a bold hand, knowing that young girls like romance even at second hand. “I came to Nevis to see Mrs. France,” he said deliberately. “We are engaged to be married, and she tells me it will be difficult to see her in her mother’s house. Suppose you lend me a helping hand.” And he held out his with a charming smile.
Fanny scowled, and for the moment looked more formidable than handsome; then, with the adaptability of youth, was suddenly afire at the prospect of a vicarious romance.
“How perfectly glorious!” she cried. “Oh, I’ll help you, Mr. Tay. Granny’ll never let you in. But I’ll hide you in the shrubberies. I’ll throw you a rope over the wall, made of ancestral sheets —”
“Fanny!” said Julia, severely. “We’re not characters in an old-fashioned novel.”
“Don’t I wish we were! That’s all I could be. Oh, Mr. Tay, don’t give up.”
“Fanny! Do you forget that my husband is alive?”
“Oh, what’s a lunatic? Mr. Tay just said you were engaged, and anybody can get a divorce. They’ve been talking about it on the terrace.”
“Ah!” Julia made an attempt at lightness. “You are not so inhospitable to these times, after all.”
“I’d swallow them whole. But lots of kings and queens were divorced ages ago. When you’re in love I don’t fancy the century makes any difference.”