"We're engaged," said Jane. "We got engaged this morning. That's how he sprained his ankle. When I accepted him, he tried to jump a holly-bush."
"Engaged! Eustace, is this true?"
"Yes," said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed.
"And poor Eustace is so worried," continued Jane, "about the house." She went on quickly. "He doesn't want to deprive you of it, because he knows what it means to you. So he is hoping—we are both hoping—that you will accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan't want it, you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it, won't you—to please us?"
We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. Let us then not express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world's greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. Horace Hignett's understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and gulped: and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm.
How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody had touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where it had been switched off. Its wailing lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole house.
"That's too bad!" said Jane, a little annoyed. "At this time of night!"
"It's the burglars!" quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of society. "They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they're playing the orchestrion!"
"Light-hearted chaps!" said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the criminal world. "Full of spirits!"
"This won't do," said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. "We can't have this sort of thing. I'll go and fetch my gun."