“I did it,” cried Lady Cecilia, who now recovered her voice.
“You, my dear Lady Cecilia! Whom for? for me? is it for me?”
“For you? It may be, hereafter, perhaps.”
“Oh thank you, my dear Lady Cecilia!” cried Beauclerc.
“If you behave well, perhaps,” added she.
The general heard in his wife’s tremulous tone, and saw in her half confusion, half attempt at playfulness, only an amiable anxiety to save her friend, and to give her time to recover from her dismay. He at once perceived that Helen had not followed the course he had suggested; that she had not told Beauclerc, and did not intend that he should be told the whole truth. The general looked extremely grave; Beauclerc gave a glance round the room. “Here is some mystery,” said he, now first seeing Helen’s disconcerted countenance. Then he turned on the general a look of eager inquiry. “Some mystery, certainly,” said he, “with which I am not to be made acquainted?”
“If there be any mystery,” said the general, “with which you are not to be made acquainted, I am neither the adviser nor abettor. Neither in jest nor earnest am I ever an adviser of mystery.”
While her husband thus spoke, Lady Cecilia made another attempt to possess herself of the letter. This time she rose decidedly, and, putting aside the little ecarté table which was in her way, pressed forward to the drawer, saying something about “counters.” Her Cachemere caught on Helen’s harp, and, in her eager spring forward, it would have been overset, but that the general felt, turned, and caught it.
“What are you about, my dear Cecilia?—what do you want?”
“Nothing, nothing, thank you, my dear; nothing now.”