“Oh, then we’re still engaged.”
“Indeed, yes! Don’t think you’re going to get out of it so easily. The legal papers are in Montreal. So, instead of being married on the 16th, as we had planned, we’ve had to wait, and you’ve brought me up here, on your way to Montreal.”
“Is this the genial fiction that you’ve handed out to your friends, the newly-weds?”
“It is.”
“How did they take it?”
“Hard. Maud—that’s Mrs. Lee—especially feels that she has a terrible weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was going to wire Gloria Greene until I told her that Mrs. Bond, the housekeeper, is Mr. Harmon’s own second cousin and therefore, a fully equipped chaperon.”
“Is she?” said Remsen in surprise.
“How do I know?” returned the girl innocently. “She might be. I hadn’t asked her. But I had to invent something to pacify Maud.”
“Invention,” observed the admiring Mr. Remsen, “appears to be mere child’s play for you.”
“Even so, it didn’t satisfy Maud. She quite insisted on my moving over to the Cottage, to be under her eye.”