"Oho! Do you think she cares for you? Do you know she won't have a sixpence?"
"We shall have enough to last till next year, aunt; and then the world is to come to an end, you know, and we shan't want anything."
"Never you mind about the world, sir. Don't you be flippant and impertinent, sir. Don't evade my question, sir. Do you think Adelaide cares for you, sir?"
"Charles looked steadily and defiantly at his aunt, and asked her whether she didn't think it was very difficult to find out what a girl's mind really was—whereby we may conclude that he was profiting by Lord Saltire's lesson on the command of feature."
"This is too bad, Charles," broke out Lady Ascot, "to put me off like this, after your infamous and audacious conduct of this evening—after kissing and hugging that girl under my very nose—"
"I thought it!" said Charles, with a shout of laughter. "I thought it, you were awake all the time!"
"I was not awake all the time, sir—"
"You were awake quite long enough, it appears, aunty. Now, what do you think of it?"
At first Lady Ascot would think nothing of it, but that the iniquity of Charles's conduct was only to be equalled by the baseness and ingratitude of Adelaide's; but by degrees she was brought to think that it was possible that some good might come of an engagement; and, at length, becoming garrulous on this point, it leaked out by degrees, that she had set her heart on it for years, that she had noticed for some time Charles's partiality for her with the greatest pleasure, and recently had feared that something had disturbed it. In short, that it was her pet scheme, and that she had been coming to an explanation that very night, but had been anticipated.