‘Oh, what a fool I am!’ cried Kitty. ‘I never paid any attention to the man!’
‘What man?’
‘Why, the man she was married to, you goose! A woman can’t be married all by herself. It was a long name—Everard something. I didn’t know it, or I should have paid more attention. Haven’t you finished yet?—for I must run this instant——’
‘Where, Kitty?’
‘Why, to look up the book again!’ she cried.
‘I wish you’d give this up,’ said Walter. ‘Do, to please me. We’ve got all we wish ourselves, and why should we worry other people, Kitty?’
‘If you have got all you wish, I have not. I want to please them—to make them do something for us; and when a thing like this turns up—the very thing!—why, mamma will hug us both—she will forgive us on the spot. She’ll be so pleased she’ll do anything for us. I don’t know about Mrs. Lawrence——’
‘It won’t do us any good with my mother,’ said Walter, with a thrill of dread coming over him, for he did not like to think of his mother and that terrible trustee.
‘By the way,’ cried Kitty, with a pirouette of delight, ‘it’s I that am Mrs. Lawrence now, and she’s only the Dowager. Fancy turning a person who has always made you shake in your shoes into the Dowager! It’s too delightful—it’s worth all the rest.’
Walter did not like this to be said about his mother. He had deceived and disappointed her, but he was not without a feeling for her.