“Yes,” he said, “I know what you are looking so ‘funny’ about, Maddie, as we used to say when we were children. You cannot sham the very least bit in the world; you never could, you know. Yes—I have met Ella, and the mystification is at an end. But by Jove what it ever began for, I cannot imagine. Will you not enlighten me?”
Miss St Quentin grew more and more uneasy.
“No,” she said, “I can’t. It—it was a freak of Ermine’s, and Aunt Anna took it up and joined in it, so I could not oppose it, though to tell you the truth I never liked it. Of course at the beginning it was altogether accidental; we had no idea—Ermie and I, I mean—of Aunt Anna’s getting papa to let Ella go to the ball—we had done our utmost to persuade him, but he wouldn’t. And then your being there was unexpected—and they made a muddle of Ella’s name: all that came about of itself.”
“Yes,” said Philip. “I see. But I see, too, how cleverly you all—no, not so much you, Maddie—joined to keep up the mistake, though upon my word I can’t see any point in it. I cannot find fault with my grandmother, but I shall have it out with Ermine.”
Madelene looked distressed; she saw that Philip was on the point of being angry.
“It is my clumsiness,” she said. “If you had seen Ermine first it would have been all right. She would have made you see it differently—but don’t be vexed about it, Philip. I do beg you not to be. I do so want to have no more worries in which Ella is concerned. I am so tired of misunderstandings and all that kind of bother.”
Philip took her up at once.
“Have you had many bothers, poor Maddie?” he said. “Is she—is Ella not—not nice and gentle with you?”
Madelene felt as if she could have bitten her tongue off for having spoken so ill-advisedly.
“No, of course I didn’t mean to say anything against Ella,” she replied quickly. “You shouldn’t take one up so, Philip. It makes me think Ermine was right.”