“But, aunt,” said Alys, who was “working herself up” on a subject she was at all times inclined to grow rather hot about, “I really mean what I say. It is the only one thing I have ever really felt inclined to quarrel with Laurence for I can tell you that Arthur has been much nearer marrying than you have any idea of, and—”
It was Miss Winstanley’s turn to interrupt. “My dear!” she exclaimed, letting her knitting-needles fall on her lap in her excitement, “you don’t mean to say that he—that you—you won’t be twenty-one for two years.”
“What do you mean, aunt?” said Alys. “What has my being or not being twenty-one to do with Arthur’s marrying?”
Miss Winstanley looked as if she were going to cry.
“Why will you always begin about this subject, Alys?” she said, pathetically. “I thought you meant—”
“Well, tell me that, any way,” said Alys. “You must tell me what you thought I meant.”
“Oh, nothing. I must have mistaken you. It was only when you said that about his having thought of marrying—before your accident, of course—and I knew he took it so much to heart, but of course that was natural on all accounts,” said Miss Winstanley, confusedly.
Alys sat bolt up on her couch, thereby setting all her doctor’s orders at defiance. A red spot glowed on each cheek, her eyes were sparkling. Miss Winstanley could see that she was growing very excited—the thing of all others to be avoided for her!—and the poor lady’s alarm and distress added to her nervousness and confusion.
“Now, aunt,” said Alys, calmly, “you must tell me what I want to know. I am not so blind and childish as you have all imagined. I have known for a good while that there was some strange complication which was putting everything wrong, in which, somehow, I was concerned. Don’t make yourself unhappy by thinking it has been all your doing that I have come to know anything about it. It has been no one person’s doing; it has just been that I have ‘put two and two together’ for myself.”
“Alys,” ejaculated her aunt, “what an expression for you to use!”