April Lady

‘None whatsoever,’ agreed Cardross, leading the way to the door. ‘It might even lead me to take you in dislike, and that, you know, would be fatal to your chances!’

Three

Any scheme of intercepting her lover on his way out of the house which Letty might have cherished was frustrated by the Earl’s escorting him to the front-door, and seeing him safely off the premises. He strolled back to the library; and, after hesitating for a moment or two at the head of the stairs, from which post of vantage she had watched Mr Allandale’s departure, Letty ran lightly down, and herself entered the library.

Cardross was engaged in mending a pen, but he looked up, and, when he saw his half-sister backed against the door, an urgent question in her speaking eyes, abandoned this task. A laugh quivered in his voice as he said: ‘Letty, you goose! Did you really think that I should succumb to that unfortunate young man’s oratory? Do forgive me! But surely he is a very dull dog?’

‘I don’t care for that,’ she said, swallowing a sob. ‘He is not dull to me. I love him!’

‘You must do so indeed! I should have supposed him to be the last man to take your fancy, too.’

‘Well, he is not, and even if you are my guardian I won’t submit to having my husband chosen for me by you!’

‘Certainly not. It’s plain I should make a poor hand at it.’

Hope gleamed in her eyes; she moved towards him, and laid a coaxing hand on his arm. ‘Dear Giles, if you please, may I marry him?’

He gave her hand a pat, but said: ‘Why, yes, Letty, when you are older.’

‘But, Giles, you don’t understand! He is going away to Brazil!’

‘So he informed me.’

‘Are you thinking that perhaps it might not suit me to live there? I believe the climate is perfectly healthy!’

‘Salubrious,’ he interpolated.

‘Yes, and in any event I am never ill! You may ask my aunt if it’s not so!’

‘I am sure it is. Don’t let us fall into another exhausting argument! I have already endured a great deal of eloquence today, but it would take much more than eloquence to make me consent to your marriage to an indigent young man who proposes to take you to the other end of the world before you are eighteen, or have been out a year.’

‘That doesn’t signify! And although I own it would be imprudent to marry Jeremy if I were indigent too I am not indigent, so that’s of no consequence either!’

‘I promise you I shan’t refuse my consent on that head, if, when he returns from Brazil, you still wish to marry him.’

‘And what if some odious, designing female has lured him into marrying her?’ she demanded.

‘He assures me that his nature is tenacious, so we must hope that he will be proof against all designing females,’ he replied lightly.

‘You don’t hope that! You don’t wish me ever to marry him!’

‘No, of course I don’t! Good God, child, how could I wish you to throw yourself away so preposterously, far less help you to do it when you are hardly out of the schoolroom?’

‘If he were a man of rank and fortune you wouldn’t say I was too young!’

‘If he were a man of rank and fortune, my dear, he would not be taking up a post as some kind of secretary in Rio de Janeiro. But if it comforts you at all I don’t wish to see you married to anyone for a year or two yet.’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me as if I were a silly little child!’ she cried passionately.

‘Well, I don’t think you are very wise,’ he said.

‘No, perhaps I’m not wise, but I’m not a child, and I know my own mind! You aren’t very wise either, if you think I shall change it, or forget Jeremy! I shall remember, and be unhappy for two whole years, and very likely more! I daresay you don’t care for that, for I see that you aren’t kind, which I thought you were, but, on the contrary, perfectly heartless!’

‘Not a bit of it!’ he said cheerfully. ‘With the best will in the world to do it, I fancy you won’t fall quite into dejection. There will still be balls to attend, and new, and extremely expensive dresses to buy.’

‘I don’t want them!’

‘I wis