“You know, Mama, we have been saying that since the start of this masquerade—and God knows I wish he would come home!—but does it ever occur to you that when he does we shall find ourselves in a worse hobble than ever?”

“It must have been the lobster!” exclaimed her ladyship.

He laughed, but said: “No, do, pray, consider, love! If Evelyn were to walk in today, what are we to do? I could disappear, but not even Ambrose would be deceived for more than half-an-hour—far less Lady Stavely! It’s one thing to hoax people for an evening, quite another to do so in such circumstances as these! At the outset, none of them knew me very well and Lady Stavely not at all. But they know me now! They couldn’t meet me at breakfast, and Evelyn at dinner, and not detect the difference between us!”

“No, very true!” she said, much struck. “That is very awkward! I wonder why it should not have occurred to me? We must lose no time in trying to hit upon a—Oh, but I see just how to overcome the difficulty! Evelyn must pretend to be you, of course!”

Mr Fancot, declaring that he had now received a settler, went off, dutifully trying to think of some way of entertaining his male guests. Like the Dowager, Sir Bonamy (except under the press of extraordinary circumstances) never left his bedroom until noon; so when Kit learned from Norton that Mr Cliffe had gone out with Mr Ambrose, to see how he had come on under the gamekeeper’s tuition, his thoughts turned, very naturally, to the ladies. His search for his aunt could not have been described as more than perfunctory; but he had the great good fortune, as he stood in the hall, wondering where to look for Miss Stavely, to see her coming down the wide staircase. She was charmingly dressed in a simple, high-necked gown of French muslin, but just as he was thinking how well she looked, he saw that there was a pucker between her brows, and a troubled expression in her eyes. He said quickly: “What is it, Cressy? Something has happened to vex you?”

She paused looking down at him, and hesitated for a moment before answering. Then the crease disappeared from her brow, and she smiled, and descended the last stairs, saying: “Well, yes! That is to say, it has vexed me, but not nearly as much as it has vexed Grandmama! I am afraid it has made her out of reason cross, but I have convinced her that it is absurd to lay the blame at poor God-mama’s door! Or at Papa’s! Neither of them would do such a thing! It is one of Albinia’s high pieces of meddling, of course—trying to clinch the matter! I collect you haven’t yet seen the London papers?”

He shook his head; and she held out to him the journal she was carrying. As he took it, he saw that it was folded open at a page largely devoted to social announcements and discreetly phrased on-dits. He looked quickly up, his brows asking a question. She answered it only by wrinkling her nose distastefully, and indicating with her forefinger the paragraph to which she wished to draw his attention. It stated, after enumerating the various persons of consequence to be found recruiting nature at Worthing, that the Dowager Lady Stavely (a well-known summer visitor to that elegant resort) was this year absent from the scene, having taken her granddaughter, the Hon. Cressida Stavely, to Ravenhurst Park, the principal seat of the Earl of Denville, where they were being entertained by the noble owner, and his mother, the Dowager Countess. The writer of this titillating paragraph understood, coyly, that an Interesting Announcement was shortly to be expected from this quarter.

“My mother never sent this to the paper!” Kit exclaimed, flushing with annoyance. “Or anything that could have given rise to such a piece of impertinence!”

“No, of course she did not! I haven’t the least doubt of its being Albinia’s doing—trying to force my hand! Furthermore,” added Cressy, brooding darkly over it, “I shall own myself astonished if I don’t discover that she exerted herself to the utmost to persuade my father to insert a notice announcing that I had become engaged to marry the Earl of Denville! What a paper-skull she is! She should have known him better! You may imagine how much it has set up Grandmama’s bristles!” She began to laugh. “I don’t know which has enraged her most: the detestably sly hint, or Albinia’s impudence in having presumed to take it upon herself to give the Post information about her movements!”

Kit’s eyes were kindling. “And she thought that Mama—Mama!—would stoop to—”

She interrupted him, laying a hand on his arm, and saying quickly: “Oh, pray, don’t you rip up, Denville!” She gave a tiny choke of laughter. “She did Godmama the justice to say, even in the height of her rage, that she would not have thought it of her, which is more than she said of poor Papa, when she decided it must have been his doing! In fact, she said that it was just like him! I assure you it is not, however.”

The angry look was fading, but as Kit glanced again at the paragraph his lips curled contemptuously. “Insufferable! Your mother-in-law should have her neck wrung! As for the sneaking tattlemonger who composed this masterpiece—!” He tossed the paper aside. “He took good care, you’ll observe, to write nothing which I can either contradict or force him to apologize for!” His face softened, as he turned towards her again. “I don’t know why I should fly up into the boughs, when it is you who are the victim—except for that reason! My poor girl, I’m well aware of the embarrassment it must cause you to feel! Don’t let it cut up your peace, or influence your decision!”

An odd little smile flickered for a moment in her eyes. “No, I shan’t do that. As for Albinia, I left Grandmama writing to her. You may depend upon it that it will be a thundering letter! I dare say she had liefer have her neck wrung than receive it. Indeed, I could almost pity her, for my father will be vexed to death, and although he is in general easy-going to a fault he flies into a worse passion than Grandmama, if one succeeds in putting him out of temper. The impropriety of this horrid piece of gossip will strike him most forcefully: I wish it may not lead to a serious quarrel between him and Albinia.”

“Do you? I’m not so charitable!”

“Well, she’s such a pea-goose!” Cressy explained. “One can’t blame her for being foolish, or, I suppose, for being so jealous. One ought rather to feel compassion for her—or at least try to!—because she is bound to suffer a great deal of anguish.”

This view of the matter was not shared by Lady Denville, who, when she read the paragraph, was put into a flame. She went pink with anger, her eyes flashing magnificently. She turned them upon Kit, demanding in a trembling voice: “How dared they? Who is responsible for this abominable piece of vulgarity!”

“Cressy believes that it was her mother-in-law. I feel as you do, Mama, but our only course is to ignore it.”

“That woman!” exclaimed her ladyship. “I might have guessed as much! Do you see what she had the effrontery to call me? The Dowager Countess! Dowager—!”

He was taken aback. “Well, yes, but—”

“And I know why!” raged her ladyship. “She is a jealous, spiteful toad, and she knows that Stavely offered for me once, and still has a tendre for me! It would afford me very great pleasure to set her mind at rest! Very great pleasure! I’ll have her know that if I had no fancy for Stavely when he was young, and passably good-looking, I have less now! She is very welcome to a husband who will offer a carte blanche to some lightskirt the instant he becomes bored with her charms!”

Somewhat alarmed by this unusual venom, Kit made a quite unavailing attempt to soothe her. She interrupted him, requesting him not to put her out of all patience; and swept away, the offending newspaper clenched in her hand, to knock imperatively on the door of Lady Stavely’s bedchamber. Since nothing annoyed the Dowager more than to receive visitors before she chose to emerge from her seclusion, Kit waited for the inevitable disaster. It did not befall. The two ladies remained closeted together for a full hour, deriving great benefit from a free exchange of opinions on the character of Albinia Stavely. The only discordant note was struck by Lady Stavely, who bluntly informed her lovely hostess that however little she might relish the notion, she was Dowager Countess, and would be well-advised to accustom herself to this title.

“Which I cannot do, Kit!” Lady Denville said later, and in tragic accents. “No one can say that I haven’t borne up under a great deal of adversity, but this stroke is too much!”

The effect of the paragraph upon his maternal relations Kit dealt with summarily and conclusively. He told his aunt, who said that she had seen from the first how it was, that if his mother had dreamt that such an absurd construction would be placed on a visit from her favourite godchild she would never have invited her to Ravenhurst; and when his uncle, in a dudgeon, started to read him a lecture on the impropriety of allowing the news of his approaching nuptials to reach his relatives through the medium of the press, he put a swift end to any further recriminations by saying, in a voice of cold and quelling civility: “You may rest assured, sir, that when I contemplate matrimony I shall do myself the honour of informing you of the impending announcement.”

Ambrose, whose evil genius prompted him to quiz his cousin, was disposed of without finesse; and when Kit was able to exchange a private word with Cressy he told her not to waste a thought on an unpleasant, but evanescent annoyance. “I fancy we shall hear no more about it,” he said.