“Oh yes,” she said, more and more confused; “Miss Crediton knows that. If she can put up with our quietness—if she does not mind the seclusion. We have not seen so much of the Huntleys as we ought to have seen lately, but when they are here——”
“I had much rather come when you were quite quiet. I love quiet,” said deceitful Kate, putting her face so close to her friend’s shoulder as almost to touch it in a caressing way she had. Mrs Mitford trembled with a presentiment of terror, and yet she could not resist the soft half-caress.
“My dear child!” she cried, pressing Kate’s arm to her side. And John loomed over them both, a tall shadow, with a face which beamed through the darkness; they looked both so little beside him—soft creatures, shadowy, with wavy uncertain outlines, melting into the dark, not clear and black and well defined like himself—moving softly, with a faint rustle in the air, which might almost have been wings. His mother and—— what was Kate to him? Nothing—a stranger—a being from a different sphere; yet, at the same time, the one creature in all the world upon whom he had a supreme claim, whose life he had fought for, and rescued out of the very jaws of death.
After this they went in with eyes a little dazzled by the sudden change into the drawing-room, where the lamps were lighted, and the moths came sweeping in at the open window, strange optimists, seeking the light at all costs. Kate threw herself down in a great chair, in the shadiest corner, her white dress giving forth (poor John thought) a kind of reflected radiance, moon-like and subdued. She sank down in the large wide seat, and gave a little yawn. “I’m so tired,” she said; “I think I shall make papa carry me up-stairs.”
“Not your papa, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, who, to tell the truth, was a little matter-of-fact; “not your papa. He does not look very strong, and it would be too much for him. The servants can do it; or perhaps John——”
John started up, and came forward with his eyes lit up, half with eagerness, half with fun. He had held her in his arms before, but she had not been conscious of that. “Oh, please!” cried Kate, in alarm, “I did not mean it; I only said it in fun—for want of something else to say.”
“That is Kate’s general motive for her observations,” said Mr Crediton, who had just then come in with Dr Mitford; “and heaven knows it is apparent in them! but if I don’t carry her up-stairs, I must carry her home. She must have been no end of a trouble to you.”
“Oh no—not yet, I hope,” said Mrs Mitford, still with some confusion. She cast a rapid glance over the situation. In less than three months John was going up for ordination. After that, she reflected, his mind would be settled, and such an interruption would do him less harm. “But I feel it is very selfish trying to keep her when, I daresay, you have a great many pleasant engagements,” she went on, with diplomatic suavity; “and we are so quiet here. Only you must bring her back again, Mr Crediton—that you must promise me—in autumn, or at Christmas the very latest——”
She caught John’s eye, and faltered and stopped short; and then, of all people in the world, it was Dr Mitford who interposed.