XVIII
I saw Mrs. March waiting for me on the hotel verandah. She wore her bonnet, and she warned me not to approach, and then ran down to meet me.
“Well, my dear,” she said, as she pushed her hand through my arm and began to propel me away from the sight and hearing of people on the piazza, “I hope you didn’t make a fool of yourself with Kendricks. They’re engaged!”
She apparently expected me to be prostrated by this stroke. “Yes,” I said very coolly; “I was just coming to tell you.”
“How did you know it? Who told you? Did Kendricks? I don’t believe it!” she cried in an excitement not unmixed with resentment.
“No one told me,” I said. “I simply divined it.”
She didn’t mind that for a moment. “Well, I’m glad he had the grace to do so, and I hope he did it before you asked him any leading questions.” Without waiting to hear whether this was so or not, she went on, with an emphasis on the next word that almost blotted it out of the language, “She came back to me almost the instant you were gone, and told me everything. She said she wanted to tell me last night, but she hadn’t the courage, and this morning, when she saw that I was beginning to hint up to Mr. Kendricks a little, she hadn’t the courage at all. I sent her straight off to telegraph for her father. She is behaving splendidly. And now, what are we going to do?”
“What the rest of the world is—nothing. It seems to me that we are out of the story, my dear. At any rate, I shan’t attempt to compete with Miss Gage in splendid behaviour, and I hope you won’t. It would be so easy for us. I wonder what Papa Gage is going to be like.”
I felt my thrill of apprehension impart itself to her. “Yes!” she gasped; “what if he shouldn’t like it?”
“Well, then, that’s his affair.” But I did not feel so lightly about it as I spoke, and from time to time during the day I was overtaken with a cold dismay at the thought of the unknown quantity in the problem.