“Shall we put on the straight linen frock, with the little leather belt? I think so. And perhaps it would be as well not to speak of four-leafed clovers, perhaps not of meeting Kit, nor of your hymn. If he was annoyed, though we don’t know that he was, we should not care to remind him of it and spoil his appetite for our rather nice dinner! Raspberry shortcake and raspberry ice, little Anne!”
“Kit can’t be coming in to dinner, Helen,” said Miss Carrington, pausing at her guest’s chamber door on her way downstairs.
Helen had been thinking hard since she had left Kit. Anger still blazed in her eyes and flamed in her cheeks, but she had decided upon her line of action. However frank she might have been in prearranging her course, now that it had failed, her candour should be curtailed. She would not admit to Miss Carrington how completely she had missed her aim. She knew perfectly well that Kit’s aunt would condemn her, not only because she retained the manners of a past generation, but because she would feel that Helen would inevitably have repelled Kit by what she had done. Helen would not admit this. If little Anne had not come along precisely when she came; if Kit had once taken her in his arms, Helen felt sure that she would have fastened herself within them for all his life.
“Oh, didn’t Kit come back?” asked Helen, indifferently, when Miss Carrington said that she thought he was not returning to dinner. “He took home that thin little dark marplot. She came wandering where we were sitting. Kit left me here and went home with her. How common youngsters do go about without being looked after, and nothing happens to them! Kit probably went with this scrawny little beast for pleasure. He has strange tastes and ways!” Helen’s fury escaped her.
Miss Carrington clutched the back of the chair by the door and stared at her.
“What under heaven do you mean, Helen?” she gasped. “Little dark marplot? Anne Berkley? Good heavens, was she a marplot? Did she spoil anything?”
“Only all our plans, Miss Carrington,” Helen said, turning from the mirror with a laugh that was not pleasant. “I had Kit where I wanted him; a moment more and I’d have been your niece. But it was against his will. I’d have changed his will; he was past choosing. Then that brat came singing through the trees, a fool French hymn like a shepherdess in a badly cast musical comedy, and——” Helen waved her hands to signify the dispersion of everything.
Miss Carrington rallied.
“But it’s not final. If he was entranced, as you imply, it is only deferred.”