From this onerous duty, however, she was now to desist, and from all fatigue of receiving the guests who were arriving by different trains throughout the day. She was to lie at her ease on silken cushions in that pretty room of her own, upon whose window-box the supposititious burglar had set his too heavy boot. I was amused to see that the white chintzes of the chairs and hangings were flowered with pink carnations, and that garlands of the flower, tied with pink ribbons, formed the frieze of the white wallpaper.
"Well, you were always a petted and spoilt child," I said to her; "and I suppose you are going to be so to the end of the chapter."
"Only more so," she said, with her youthful arrogance. "You can't think what a splendid hand at spoiling Jack is."
I laughed, told her to let me know how much he spoilt her in five years' time, and left her. For a servant had interrupted our conversation with the announcement that Mr Mavor, who had returned from town, would be glad to speak to me.
"Hughie? how absurd!" Daphne said, who wanted to go on talking to me about her lover. "As if Hughie could possibly have a thing to say to you which would not keep, Hannah!"
"It is to make me an offer of marriage I have not the slightest doubt," I told her, being of an age when a woman can make jokes of that kind about herself and pretend not to feel the heartprick.
I found the head of the house in the room which had been turned into a museum of objects of art—precious and not precious—for exhibition on the morrow. I had known the young man from boyhood, and I saw at once that something was amiss. He had left for town before my arrival that morning, and this was our first meeting, but he forgot to come forward and put out his hand. He stalked past me, instead, and banged the door by which I had entered; then he seized me by the arm.
"Hannah," he said, "I want to talk to you. I want your advice. We're in a devil of a mess."
"It's the wedding-dress, or the wedding-cake!" I said, staring at him. "One of them hasn't come!"
"It's about Marston. Something I only heard to-day. He must not be allowed to marry my sister."