Kit had been diverted from his discomfort and the puzzle as to his next step, but it had closed down upon him on the way home, and he knew that it was now to become articulate in the person of his aunt. He went into Miss Carrington’s room: she followed and closed the door behind them.
“Kit, what have you done to Helen?” Miss Carrington demanded.
“Nothing, Aunt Anne; I’ve done nothing to Helen,” Kit replied, hoping that he did not look as much like a small boy called to the teacher’s desk as he felt.
Miss Carrington chuckled; her sense of humour was unreliable.
“I believe that. Not even kissed her!” she said. “But I meant you to kiss her and be engaged to her, then marry her, in a pretty and prudent sequence, as you perfectly well know.” She suddenly became fiercely serious. “See here, Kit, you’re to marry Helen, do you hear me? I wonder what better you could ask of fate? That quiet little brown girl, Anne Damask, Darrar, whatever she is, with whom you fancied yourself in love—oh, dear me, yes; I saw it, but it was utter tom-foolishness—is going to marry the poet. A good thing all around! You are to marry Helen. Please make a point of being engaged to her to-morrow at this time.”
It was a mistake, of course, but Kit laughed.
“Sounds like ordering the car, or chops, or something, Aunt Anne!” he said, his cheerfulness restored. “I shall never marry Helen, and never make a point of being engaged to her; I’ll make a point of not being! And to-morrow I’ll get out of her way; go down to New York to see a man there whom I want to see anyway, and then hang around somewhere till Helen is gone. In September I’m going into business.”
“Good heavens, Kit!” gasped Miss Carrington. “And my heart has been weak lately!”
She yielded everything so swiftly that Kit was bewildered.
“Very well, then, don’t marry Helen! It will be you, not I, who loses. But don’t go away. Stay at home. There won’t be awkwardness; Helen knows how to break most of the commandments, but she wouldn’t know how to behave stupidly. Stay here, Kit, at least awhile.”