"No. That you cared for him," Alicia puckered her brows.
"My dear girl," I was trying to feel my way toward letting her have the truth, "listen: whether or not he is engaged to me, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik really loves some lady that neither you nor I know. He told me so himself."
It took Alicia some moments to recover from that!
"And yet you're going to marry him, Sophy?"
"You heard him announce our engagement."
"I can't understand!" sighed Alicia. "Oh, Sophy, sometimes I could wish we had never come to Hynds House!"
"It had to be," I said dully.
"And—The Author?" ventured Alicia, after a pause. "He thinks you belong to him by right of discovery. He doesn't accept Mr. Jelnik's announcement as final. He told me this morning that his offer stood until you actually married somebody else. The Author isn't used to being crossed, and he doesn't quite know how to take it."
"It is on the knees of the gods," I repeated, weariedly.
Came a gentle tap at the door, and following it the fresh, kind face of Miss Emmeline.