“No, no, nonsense,” said Mrs. Vachell. “Here, come and sit down. Ivor isn’t going away. He will be sent to me first and you won’t go on the boat at all. You can either be supposed to join him at Marseilles, or if that makes too much fuss you can go on board and slip off among the crowd when people are being sent ashore at the last minute. There are lots of ways and we will think out the best. Once he is safely off, you will go back to your parents and he will find the devil of a difficulty in dislodging you. It is a temporary remedy, I know, but we shall have time to think of something else when the next obstacle turns up. He is one man against three women, remember. You know your mother by this time. I am not sure but what she is stronger than either of us. And you will have all the regiment with you if they get to know of it.”
“But Mother doesn’t know,” said Evangeline. “I didn’t think it was any use telling her.”
“Then you are a fool, dear. Never mind; I have told her; and if Evan thinks he is any match for her he is mistaken. He might as well try to fight a climate.”
“But how did you know anything about it?” she asked, more and more puzzled. “He only told me yesterday, and I don’t know now where he wants to send Ivor. It may be to his sisters, which is bad enough.”
“I knew a month ago what he intended to do some day, and I made plans for you as soon as I heard that he might be going to Egypt. Don’t waste time being jealous of me, Evangeline. I would wring the man’s neck like a turkey’s if I could.”
“Oh, you are wicked!” gasped Evangeline.
“No, I am not. Don’t be stupid. You will lose your faith in men too some day, and then you won’t stick at anything to help a woman. What other weapons have we to defend our lives as yet? Do you want Ivor or do you not?”
“Do I?” said Evangeline, nervously hunting for her handkerchief. “I didn’t sleep last night and I’ve had no breakfast.”
“Very well, have lunch now, then,” said Mrs. Vachell, rising. During lunch they matured their plan. Evan had not yet explained definitely where he intended to send Ivor, though he had once mentioned two friends of his mother’s, “the best women in the world,” he called them. Mrs. Vachell related all she knew of the place where they lived and their methods of training the young mind. Perhaps she exaggerated and perhaps Evan had laid unfair stress on the items he was most anxious about. “They believe in making a child independent of physical comforts,” she said, “and not allowing a light in the room at night and that sort of thing.”
“Oh, God! Ivor will go mad,” said Evangeline. “He is so good about the dark and getting used to it, but he hates it—and without me!”