“Why, George’s old secretary. She is a Mrs. Ball now. You were her best man.”
“Peter Ball’s! Good old Ball! So I was. Bless me. ‘Have you forgotten, love, so soon—That church in June?’ Yes, of course I used to call her the Woman who Would—marry the good Ball, I mean. I shall be over there some time next month shooting. She gave me a general invitation.”
He wouldn’t say when he was likely to be at Rattenraw, it is a little way men have of defending themselves against girls like Ariadne. Now Ariadne and I had a particular invitation to go and stay with Christina for a fortnight, as it happened, and if Ariadne had been having this talk instead of me, she would have told him, and tried to pin him down to a time, but I was wiser. I said “Good-bye” quite shortly, as if I wasn’t at all interested in his movements, and went home. I was a little ashamed of one thing, I had told a lie about Aunt Gerty and denied her before men, as the Scripture says. But it was not for my own sake. Fifty Aunt Gertys can’t hurt me, but one can do Ariadne lots of harm and ruin her social prestige. On the way home I thought what I would do, and did it at lunch.
“Please, Aunt Gerty,” I said, “if you meet me on the quays or anywhere when I am talking to Mr. Simon Hermyre, I must beg of you not to be familiar with me, for I have told him that you were no relation, and I gave him your stage name when he asked me who you were.”
“Oh, did he ask?” said Aunt Gerty, jumping about. “He must have seen me somewhere. In Trixy’s Trust perhaps? I made a hit there. Well, child, you may as well bring us together. Use my professional name, of course.”
“All right,” said I. I did not tell her Simon was off to-morrow. Now don’t you call that eating your cake and having it!
CHAPTER XVI
WE all hoped that Mr. Bowser would find he liked Aunt Gerty well enough to wish to relieve us of her, but we evidently wished it so strongly that he did not see his way to obliging us. These things get into the air somehow, and put people off. Of course Aunt Gerty herself wished it more than anybody, and she was feeling considerably annoyed as she completed the arrangements for a rather seedy sort of autumn tour, which she would not have had to do if she could have pulled it off with the brewer. She wreaked her vexation on us, us and Mother, who was very patient, knowing what poor Aunt Gerty was feeling. But Ariadne, who was feeling very much the same way, and had to suffer in silence, resented it, and when Aunt Gerty hustled her, hustled back in spite of her broken heart.
George left for Scotland. He says he is going to shoot with the Scillys. I don’t know why, but I have a fancy he has gone to Ben Rhydding, all alone, to cure his gout. It didn’t matter. It was settled that we were to go to stay with Christina in Northumberland.