They entered the room together, and paused for a moment on the threshold. The Dowager, who had just picked up the cards dealt her by SirBonamy, laid them down again, staring at the twins in astonishment. She did not speak, but the sudden gleam in her eyes informed her granddaughter that she was not unappreciative of the picture quite unconsciously presented by the Fancot twins.
Apart, they were held to be very fine young men; together, with the candlelight glinting on their burnished heads, they were so striking that the Dowager, like many before her, was dazzled into thinking them the most handsome men she had ever beheld.
“Evelyn, my dear one!” exclaimed Lady Denville, springing up from the sofa, and going towards him with her light, graceful step, and her hands held out in welcome.
He took one in his own left hand, and kissed it, murmuring wickedly: “You are smart tonight, love! Dressed like Christmas beef!”
She chuckled, and would have led him forward, but he put her gently aside, and advanced down the room alone, to where the Dowager sat. If he was in a quake, no trace of it was apparent in his bearing. He bowed, and with a smile quite as disarming as Kit’s, said: “I owe you an apology, Lady Stavely. But indeed I couldn’t help it!”
In spite of herself, her lips twitched, and she put out her hand. “So you are Denville, are you?” she said. “H’m! You’d better beg my granddaughter’s pardon, young man!”
“Why, yes!” he agreed, his mother’s mischievous look in his eyes; and turned towards Cressy, holding out his hand. “So I do, Cressy—but you are very well rid of me, you know!” She had risen to her feet, and as she laughed, giving him her hand, he kissed it, and then her cheek, saying: “I wish you every happiness, my dear!”
“Thank you! May I return that wish?” she said demurely.
The smile in his eyes acknowledged the sly allusion, but he replied audaciously: “Indeed, I am excessively happy to have you for a sister!” He turned his head. “Kester!”
Kit strolled forward, but his eyes were on Cressy, warmly appreciative. Evelyn said: “If I have any right to this hand, may I bestow it on my brother, Miss Stavely? He is much more worthy of it than I am—but that I needn’t tell you!”
“Thank you, twin, that will do!” said Kit, receiving the hand, and clasping it strongly.
Evelyn laughed, and turned away to confront Sir Bonamy. He looked down at him, laughter dying, and his smile a little rigid. “Kit tells me, sir, that I must offer you my felicitations.”
Sir Bonamy, regarding him with all the wariness of one faced with a cobra, said: “Yes, yes! Very much obliged to you, Denville! That is—if you have no objection!”
“Eh?” exclaimed the Dowager. She looked sharply from Sir Bonamy to Lady Denville. “So that’s it, is it? Upon my word!”
“Yes, ma’am,” corroborated Lady Denville sunnily. “That’s it! Sir Bonamy has done me the honour to ask me to marry him, and I have accepted his offer.”
“You have, have you? Well,” said the Dowager trenchantly, “if that’s so, it’s the only sensible thing I’ve ever known you do, Amabel!”
Sir Bonamy, paying no heed to this, seized the opportunity to say, in an urgent undervoice: “Not if you dislike it, Denville! Naturally, it’s the dearest wish of my heart, but no need for you to take snuff! Only have to tell me! For I wouldn’t come between you and your mother for the world!”
Over his hapless head the twins’ eyes met for an instant of unholy joy. No more than Kit could Evelyn resist the appeal of the ludicrous; the rigidity melted from his smile; he produced his snuff-box from his pocket, unfobbed it with an expert flick, and offered it to Sir Bonamy, saying: “Take snuff? Yes, indeed! Will you try my sort, sir?”
“Well, that isn’t precisely what I meant, but—thank you, my boy! I’ve often wondered what your mixture is—a touch of old Havre, I fancy, and a suspicion—no more—of French Prize, added, of course, to—”
“Just so, sir—and you will not find it dry!”
Sir Bonamy, helping himself to a pinch, was shaken by one of his rumbling laughs. “Ah, that waswhere I was a trifle too knowing for Kit! Told you about it, did he? He hasn’t your deft way of opening his box, either!”
“Oh, he will never acquire that!” said Evelyn. “His taste is for cigars!”
“No!” uttered Sir Bonamy, profoundly shocked.
The Dowager broke in impatiently on this digression. “Now, listen to me,” she commanded, driving her cane into the carpet with an imperative thud. “Very pretty talking, all of this, but if you think—any of you!—that I’ll give my consent to this havey-cavey business you very much mistake the matter!”
“But, Grandmama!” interposed Cressy, releasing Kit’s hand, and sitting down beside the Dowager. “You told me more than once that you liked Kit! Why, this very day you said that he was a very proper man, and were ready to eat me for seeming to be unwilling to accept his offer! You said I was no better than a moonling!”
“Hold your tongue, girl! I’ll have you know that there has never been any scandal attached to the Stavelys, and I’ll have no hand in helping you to create one! A fine piece of work this is!”
“Well, of course, it is a little awkward,” agreed Lady Denville, “but I dare say it will soon be forgotten!”
“That,” said the Dowager witheringly, “is an observation only worthy of such a jingle-brain as you are, Amabel!”
A flush rose to Evelyn’s lean cheeks; but before he could speak Sir Bonamy forestalled him. “Perfectly true!” he pronounced, fixing the Dowager with his round-eyed stare. “I never knew a scandal that wasn’t precious soon ousted by another! What’s more,” he added, pointing a stubby finger at her, and wagging it, “if it hadn’t been for that dashed silly notice in the Morning Post there ain’t a soul worth a rush who would have known anything about this affair!”
“Yes!” Evelyn struck in. “Who was responsible for that notice? Not you, Mama!”
“No, indeed!” Lady Denville replied indignantly. “I may be jingle-brained but never have I been guilty of vulgarity!”
“No one said you had!” said the Dowager testily, and for once in her life disconcerted. “We all know it was Albinia who was responsible for that! Not that it’s proved against her, mind, but I’mnot one to blink what’s as plain as the nose on your face! It was her doing, no question about it! I wrote instantly to tell her that I knew it, and not one word has she dared set down on paper in reply! And if she thinks that because she has given Stavely an heir she’ll hear no more of the business she will very soon learn her mistake! But,” pursued the old lady, making a gallant recovery, “I’ll thank you all to remember that pretty well every member of the family believes that it was you, Denville, whom they was invited to meet in my son’s house, and you who had made her an offer!”
“What of that?” demanded Sir Bonamy, continuing to fret the Dowager with his unnervingly blank stare. “It ain’t to be supposed they’ll spread it about that they was hoaxed! They’ll do what you bid ’em, my lady!”
“Not all of them!” replied the Dowager unexpectedly. “Stavely saw fit to gather his relations together stock and block, and there were several sprigs there I never saw before in my life, and don’t wish to see again!”
“That’s very true!” said Lady Denville. “Only think of that tiresome young man who pestered Kit to buy a horse which I know poor Evelyn doesn’t want to own!”
“Lucton!” ejaculated Evelyn. “Kester, you didn’t?”
Kit, who had seated himself a little apart from the rest of the group, replied briefly: “Nothing else I could do.”
“Gudgeon!” said Evelyn. “An abominable screw! Why didn’t you consult Challow?”