“No, Betty had better go. Betty, you know Moulsey’s box and that new basket that mamma brought me before we left the Baths.”
“When you have made up your minds,” cried Betty, who had slipped out of the vehicle at the first word. Betty thought it would be more fun to go through the Custom House than to wait all the time cooped up here.
And Bee had her reward; for Aubrey was there, waiting at a distance till the matter was settled. “I should have risked everything and come, even if the penalty had been a quarrel with Charlie,” Aubrey said, “but I must not quarrel with anyone if I can help it. We shall have hard work enough without that.”
“Yes, I have seen him: but I have not done myself much good, I fear,” said Aubrey, shaking his head. “Bee, you won’t give me up whatever they may say?”
“Give you up? Never, Aubrey, till you give me up!”
“Then all is safe, my darling. However things look now they can’t hold out for ever. Lies must be found out, and then--in time--you will be able to act for yourself.”
“Do you think papa will stand to it like that, Aubrey?”
Aubrey shook his head. He did not make any reply.
He bent down his head upon her hand, kissing it.
“Not all,” he said, in an almost inaudible voice. “ I said that--at Cologne----”
“I did not understand,” said Bee. “No; it does not matter to me, Aubrey--not so very much; but if you promised----”
“I never promised--never! My only thought was to escape----”
“Then I can’t think what you have done wrong. Aubrey, is she tall, with dark hair, and beautiful dark eyes, and a way of looking at you as if she would look you through and through?”
“Bee!” he said, gripping her fast, as if someone had been about to decoy her away.
“And a mouth,” said Bee, “that is very pretty, but looks as if it were cut out of steel? Then, I have seen her. She sat down by me one day in the wood, when I was doing that sketch, and gave me such clever hints, telling me how to finish it, till she made me hate it, don’t you know. Is she horribly clever, and a good artist? and like that----”
“Nothing very much. Asked me about the people at the hotel, and if there were any Leighs--not you, she pretended, but the Leighs of Hurst-leigh, whom she knew. I thought it very strange at the time why she should ask about the Leighs without knowing anything--and then I forgot all about it. But to-day it came back to my mind, and I have been thinking of nothing else. Aubrey--she is older than you are?”
