Adelaide Maud looked softly after them.

"Nothing to go on to at Ridgetown," she murmured. "And no one to forget."

She smiled softly.

"Ah! well, it's nice that there's no one to forget."

CHAPTER XXII

The Engagement

The night at Lady Emily's was by no means a first step into a new and fashionable world. Mabel and Jean never doubted for a moment that they were anything but spectators of that brilliant gathering. Even Adelaide Maud was only a spectator. Lady Emily and her husband were different from the world in which they moved because they had hobbies and minor interests which they occasionally allowed to interfere with the usual routine. Mr. Dudgeon had been known to skip a state banquet for a book which he has just received. And Lady Emily would make such calls and give such invitations as resulted in that wonderful little dinner party.

But as for any of her set being interested, why, there was no time for that. Place something in their way, like Mabel sitting on a couch, part of which Earl Knuptford desired to make use and one met a "belted Earl."

He became interested and dropped sentences pell-mell on Mabel's astonished head. For days, Jean dreamed of large envelopes arriving--"The Earl and Countess of Knuptford request," etc.

("You donkey, there's no countess," interjected Mabel.) The Earl would as soon have thought of inviting the lamp post which brought his motor to a full stop and his Lordship's gaze on it correspondingly. Bring these people to a pause in front of something, and they might delay themselves to interview it. But while one is not part of the machinery which takes them on, there is no chance of continuing the acquaintance.

Adelaide Maud told them as much. It seemed to Mabel that Adelaide Maud wanted them to know that though she lived in this world, she was by no means of it. She enjoyed herself often quite as much in the shilling seats. Her view of things did not prevent Mabel and Jean from partic.i.p.ating in benefits to be derived from the acquaintance of Lady Emily. There ensued a happy time when they had seats at the Opera, of which an autumn season was in full swing, of occasional concerts and drives, and once they went with Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon far into the country on a motor. For the rest, friends of their own looked them up, and they had hardly a moment unfilled with practising which was not devoted to going about and seeing the world of London. The Club improved with acquaintance, and it was wonderful how the very girls who annoyed Jean so much on her arrival became part of their very existence.

"We are so dull," she would write home, "because Violet has gone off for the week end," or "We didn't go out because Ethel and Gertrude wanted us to have tea with them."

Adelaide Maud left for home. That was the tragic note of their visit.

Then Cousin Harry turned up with his sister and her husband and offered to run them over to Paris for Christmas. Here the cup overflowed.

Paris!

It was a new wrench for Mr. Leighton, who meant to get them home for Christmas and if possible keep them there. But he knew that a trip with Mrs. Boyne would be of another "seventh heaven" order, and once more he gave way.

"Can you hold the fort a little longer?" wrote Mabel to Elma.

Elma held the fort.

She held it, wondering often what would come of it all. She was in the position of a younger sister to one she did not love. Isobel chaperoned her everywhere. They had reached a calm stage where they took each other in quite a polite manner, but never were confidential at all. Mr. and Mrs. Leighton saw the politeness and were relieved. They saw further, and lamented Isobel's great friendship with the Merediths. It seemed to Mr. Leighton that although he would much rather leave the affair alone, that Isobel was in his care, that she was a handsome, magnificent girl, and that she ought not to be offered calmly as a sort of second sacrifice to the caprices of Robin. He spoke to her one evening very gently about it when they were alone.

"I thought I ought to tell you," said Mr. Leighton, "that in a tacit sort of manner, Mr. Meredith attached himself very closely to Mabel.

She was so young that I did not interfere, as now I am very much afraid I ought to have done. It is a little difficult, you see, for your Aunt in particular, who is asked on every side, 'I had understood that Mabel was to marry Mr. Meredith.' I want you to know of course that Mabel never will marry him now. I should see to that myself, if she had not already told me that she had no desire to. He is not tied in any way, except, as I consider, in the matter of honour. I did not interfere before, but at present I am almost compelled to. I'm before everything your guardian, my dear. I should like you to find a man worthy of yourself."

He had done it as kindly as he knew how.

Isobel sat calmly gazing past him into the fire. There was no ruffling of her features. Only a faint suggestion of power against which it seemed luckless to fight.

"I knew a good deal of this, of course," she said.

"Oh." Mr. Leighton started slightly.

"Yes. But of course there is a similar tale of every man, and every girl--wherever they are boxed up in a place of this size. Somebody has to make love to somebody. I don't suppose Mr. Meredith thought of marriage."

It seemed as though Mr. Leighton were the young, inexperienced person, and that Isobel was the one to impart knowledge.

"In justice to Mr. Meredith, I do not know in the slightest what he thought. That is where my case loses its point. I ought to have known.

I certainly, of course, think that I ought to know now."

"Oh," said Isobel. She rose very simply and looked as placid as a lake on a calm morning. "That is very simple. Mr. Meredith intends to marry me whenever I give him the opportunity."

Mr. Leighton was thunderstruck. At the bottom of his mind, he was thankful now that "his girls" were away. Memories of the stumbling block which the existence of Robin's sister had before occasioned made him ask first, "Does Miss Meredith know?"

He spoke in quite a calm manner. It frustrated Isobel for the moment, who had expected an outburst. She wavered slightly in her answer.

"I don't know," she said.

Mr. Leighton moved impatiently.

"That is just it," he said. "This young man makes tentative arrangements and leaves out the important parties to it. Miss Meredith is quite capable of upsetting her brother's plans. Do you know it?"

It seemed that Isobel did. It seemed that Miss Meredith was the one person who could ruffle her. From that day of negligently answering and partly snubbing her in the train, Isobel had showed a side of cool indifference to Miss Meredith.

"I want you to know, Uncle, that I shall not consider Miss Meredith in the slightest."

Could this be a young girl?

"Do you know what Mabel, what all of you did? You considered Miss Meredith. What were the consequences? She gave Mabel away with both hands. She wants her brother to marry Miss Dudgeon. He won't marry Miss Dudgeon. He will marry me."

She rose slightly.

"And Miss Meredith won't have the slightest possible say in the matter."

Mr. Leighton looked rather pale. He flicked quietly the ash from his cigar before answering her.

"It's a different way of dealing with people than I am accustomed to.

Will you keep your decision open for a little yet?"

"I shall, till summer, when we mean to be married."

There seemed to be no altering the fact that she was to be married.

"I should be so sorry if, while here with me--with all of us, you did not find a man worthy of you."

"I won't change my mind," she said.

"And Robin?"

He had returned to the old term.

"He didn't change his mind before. Miss Meredith did it for him. I am quite alive to the fact that if Miss Meredith hadn't interfered, and I hadn't come, he would now be engaged to Mabel."

Mr. Leighton appeared dumbfoundered.