I had hardly begun to enjoy the month of solitude when it was over, and Gertrude and Jimmy returned from Harrogate, he very limp and depressed, as always after his cure, and sure that it had done him more harm than good.
The two girls came back from the Solent looking the picture of health; even Joan was almost pretty, beaming under her tan. Dulcibella, who did not tan, was ravishing. The children were a rich brown pink apparently all over, and the ancient Miss Jones was a jet-beaded mass of bridling gratitude and self-importance.
Then, of course, the storm burst.
You and I, reader, know exactly what had happened. Dulcie had got engaged to Mr. Vavasour, and Joan to Mr. Wilson.
Dulcie came skimming down in the dusk the first evening to announce the event to me, her soft cheek pressed to mine. She said she wanted me to be the first to know.
And Gertrude had said I could do nothing for her!
She told me that at that very moment the blissful Joan was announcing her own betrothal to her parents.
Next morning Jimmy came down to see me. He generally gravitated to me if anything went wrong.
“We are in a hat up at the house,” he said. “Joan has actually engaged herself to that oaf, Wilson. Infernal cheek on his part, I call it.”