第28章

"Yes, terrible. As long as he was interested in her simply from a literary point of view, though I didn't like that either, I could put up with it; but now that he's got to telling her about himself, and exchanging weird experiences with her, it's another thing altogether. Oh, I never wanted Kendricks brought into the affair at all.""Come now, Isabel! Stick to the facts, please.""No matter! It was you that discovered the girl, and then something had to be done. I was perfectly shocked when you told me that Mr.

Kendricks was in town, because I saw at once that he would have to be got in for it; and now we have to think what we shall do.""Couldn't we think better in the morning?""No; we must think at once. I shall not sleep to-night anyhow. My peace is gone. I shall have to watch them every instant.""Beginning at this instant. Why not wait till you can see them?""Oh, you can't joke it away, my dear. If I find they are really interested in each other I shall have to speak. I am responsible.""The young lady," I said, more to gain time than anything else, "seems quite capable of taking care of herself.""That makes it all the worse. Do you think I care for her only?

It's Kendricks too that I care for. I don't know that I care for her at all.""Oh, then I think we may fairly leave Kendricks to his own devices;and I'm not alarmed for Miss Gage either, though I do care for her a great deal.""I don't understand how you can be so heartless about it, Basil,"said Mrs. March, plaintively. "She is a young girl, and she has never seen anything of the world, and of course if he keeps on paying her attention in this way she can't help thinking that he is interested in her. Men never can see such things as women do. They think that, until a man has actually asked a girl to marry him, he hasn't done anything to warrant her in supposing that he is in love with her, or that she has any right to be in love with him.""That is true; we can't imagine that she would be so indelicate.""I see that you're determined to tease, my dear," said Mrs. March, and she took up her book with an air of offence and dismissal. "If you won't talk seriously, I hope you will think seriously, and try to realise what we've got in for. Such a girl couldn't imagine that we had simply got Mr Kendricks to go about with her from a romantic wish to make her have a good time, and that he was doing it to oblige us, and wasn't at all interested in her.""It does look a little preposterous, even to the outsider," Iadmitted.

"I am glad you are beginning to see it in that light, my dear, and if you can think of anything to do by morning I shall be humbly thankful. _I_ don't expect to.""Perhaps I shall dream of something," I said more lightly than Ifelt. "How would it do for you to have a little talk with her--a little motherly talk--and hint round, and warn her not to let her feelings run away with her in Kendricks's direction?" Mrs. March faced her book down in her lap, and listened as if there might be some reason in the nonsense I was talking. "You might say that he was a society man, and was in great request, and then intimate that there was a prior attachment, or that he was the kind of man who would never marry, but was really cold-hearted with all his sweetness, and merely had a passion for studying character.""Do you think that would do, Basil?" she asked.

"Well, I thought perhaps you might think so.""I'm afraid it wouldn't," she sighed.

"All that we can do now is to watch them, and act promptly, if we see that they are really in love, either of them.""I don't believe," I said, "that I should know that they were in love even if I saw it. I have forgotten the outward signs, if Iever knew them. Should he give her flowers? He's done it from the start; he's brought her boxes of Huyler candy, and lent her books;but I dare say he's been merely complying with our wishes in doing it. I doubt if lovers sigh nowadays. I didn't sigh myself, even in my time; and I don't believe any passion could make Kendricks neglect his dress. He keeps his eyes on her all the time, but that may be merely an effort to divine her character. I don't believe Ishould know, indeed I don't."

"I shall," said Mrs. March.