“You’re not acting altogether on the straight about this voyage, are you, Chips? What’s the plot?”
Evangeline pushed back her chair and a look of terror came into her face. She hesitated, but said nothing. He looked at her with concern. “My dear child, I am not going to eat you,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“I thought perhaps you knew,” she stammered, without realising what she had said.
“What, that your mother had given you away?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she did, though she didn’t mean to. She was a marvel of discretion, but unfortunately I had a tooth out and came here when I ought to have been stowed in the train, and I met your luggage on the doorstep. She told me it was antiques or something, and I didn’t, in fact, think much about it until you turned up. So now you had better tell me what you have both been up to. It is quite evident that you haven’t parted from Ivor. How do you manage that? Are you going to take him as a cargo of apples or what?”
“No, I am not going,” said Evangeline. “I won’t go, and if you give me away, I’ll—no, I am sorry. I would have told you at first, but Mother and Mrs. Vachell said that men will only help to clear up a mess. They won’t ever make a plan to prevent it.”
“Oh,” said Cyril, “so the plot is pretty deep, is it? How big is the membership?”
“Just us three,” said Evangeline.
“Not Dicky?”