Set in Silver. C. N. Williamson

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СКАЧАТЬ in a garden, so who can blame the poor child? I always thought if even a moderately good-looking young man proposed to me by moonlight, in a garden, I would say "Yes—yes!" at once, even if I changed my mind next day.

      But Honoré is very good looking (she has his picture in a locket, with such a turned-up moustache—I mean Honoré, not the locket), and so Ellaline didn't change her mind next day.

      Not a word was said to Madame de Blanchemain (as far as Ellaline knows), for they decided that, considering everything, they must keep their secret, and eventually run away to be married; because Honoré is poor, and Ellaline's an heiress guarded by a Dragon.

      Well, through letters which E. has been receiving at a teashop where she and the other older girls go, rigorously chaperoned, twice a week, it was arranged to do the deed as soon as school should close; and if they could have carried out their plan, Ellaline would have been Madame du Guesclin before the Dragon could have appeared on the scene, breathing fire and rattling his scales. They were going to Scotland to be married (Honoré's idea), as a man can't legally marry a girl under age in France without the consent of everybody concerned. Once she'd got away with him, and had had any kind of hole-in-the-corner wedding, Honoré was of opinion that even the most abandoned Dragon would be thankful to sanction a marriage according to French law; so it could all be done over again properly in France.

      I suppose this appealed immensely to Ellaline's love of intrigue and kittenish tricksiness generally. Anyway, she agreed; but young officers propose, and their superiors dispose. Honoré was ordered off for a month's manœuvres before he could even ask for leave; and as he's known to be destitute of near relatives, he couldn't rake up a perishing grandmother as an excuse.

      What he did try, I don't know; but anyhow, he failed, and the running away had to be put off. That was blow number one, and could have been borne, without blow number two, which fell in the shape of a letter. It said that the wicked guardian was just about to start for home, and intended to pick up Ellaline on his way to England, as if she were a parcel labelled "to be kept till called for."

      She's certain he won't let her marry Honoré if he has the chance to say "no" beforehand, because he cares nothing about her happiness, or about her, or anything else except his own selfish ambitions. Of course, Ellaline is a girl who takes strong prejudices against people for no particular reason, except that she has a "feeling they are horrid"; but she does appear to be right about this man. He's English, and though Ellaline's mother was half French, they were cousins, and I believe her dying request was that he should take care of her daughter and her daughter's money. You would have thought that that must have softened even a hard heart, wouldn't you? But the Dragon's was evidently sentiment-proof, even so many years ago, when he must have been comparatively young—if Dragons are ever young.

      He accepted the charge (Ellaline thinks her money probably influenced him to do that; and perhaps he was paid for his trouble); but, instead of carrying out his engagements, like a faithful guardian, he packed the poor four-year-old baby off to some pokey, prim people in the country, and promptly went abroad to enjoy himself. There Ellaline would no doubt have been left to this day, dreadfully unhappy and out of her element, for the people were an English curate and his wife; but, luckily, her mother had stipulated that she was to be sent to the same school in France where she herself had been educated—Madame de Maluet's.

      Never once has her guardian shown the slightest sign of interest in Ellaline: hasn't asked for her photograph or written her any letters. They've communicated with each other only through Madame de Maluet, four times a year or so; and Ellaline doesn't feel sure that her fortune has been properly administered, so she says she ought to marry young and have a husband to look after her interests.

      When I ventured to hope that the Dragon wasn't quite so scaly and taily as she painted him, she proved her point by telling me that he'd been censured lately in the English Radical papers for killing a lot of poor, defenceless Bengalese in cold blood. Somebody must have sent her the cuttings, for Ellaline hardly knows that newspapers exist. I dare say it was Kathy Bennett, one of Madame's few English pupils. Ellaline has chummed up with her lately. And that news does seem to settle the man's character, doesn't it? He must be a perfect brute.

      Ellaline says that she'd rather die than lose Honoré, also that he'll kill himself if he loses her. And now, dearest—now for the Thunderbolt! She vows that the only thing which can possibly save her is for me to take her place for five or six weeks, until her soldier's manœuvres are over and he can get leave to whisk her off to Scotland for the wedding.

      You're the quickest-witted darling in the world, and you generally know all that people mean even before they speak. Yet I can see you looking puzzled as well as startled, and muttering to yourself: "Take Ellaline's place? Where—how—when?"

      I was like that myself while she was trying to explain. I stared with an owlish stare for about five minutes, until her real idea in all its native wildness, not to say enormity, burst upon me.

      She wants to go day after to-morrow to Madame de Blanchemain's, as she'd expected to do before she heard that the Dragon was coming to gobble her up. She wants to stay there quietly until Honoré can take her, and she wants me to pretend to be Ellaline Lethbridge!

      I nearly fell off my chair at this point, but I hope you won't do anything like that—which is the reason why I've been working up to the revelation with such fiendish subtlety. Have you noticed it?

      Ellaline has plotted the whole scheme out. I shouldn't have thought her capable of it; but she says it's desperation.

      She's certain she can persuade Madame de Maluet to let her leave school, to go to the station and meet the Dragon (that's the course he himself suggests: too much trouble even to run out to Versailles and fetch her) with only me as chaperon. I dare say she's right about Madame, for all the teachers will be gone day after to-morrow, and Madame herself invariably collapses the moment school breaks up: she seems to break up with it, and to have to lie in bed for at least half a week to be mended.

      Madame has really quite a flattering opinion of my discretion. She's told me so several times. I suppose it's the way I do my hair for school, which does give me a look of incorruptible virtue, doesn't it? Fortunately she doesn't know I always change it (if not too tired) ten minutes after I get home to you.

      Well, then, taking Madame's permission for granted, Ellaline points out that all stumbling-blocks are removed, for she won't count moral ones, or let me count them.

      I'm to see her off for St. Cloud, and wait to receive the Dragon. "Sir, behold the burnt-offering—I mean, behold your ward!"

      And I'm to go on being a burnt-offering till it's convenient for the real Ellaline to scrape my ashes off the smoking altar.

      It's all very well to make fun of the thing like that. But to be serious—and goodness knows it's serious enough—what's to be done, little mother? Ellaline has (because I insisted) given me till to-morrow morning to answer. I explained that my consent must depend on your consent. So that's why I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast. I rushed home to write this immense letter to you, and get it off to catch the post. It will arrive in the morning with your coffee and petits pains—how I wish I were in its place! You can take half an hour to make up your mind (I'm sure with your lightning wits you wouldn't ask longer to decide the fate of the Great Powers of Europe) and then telegraph me simply "Yes," or "No." I will understand.

      For my own sake, naturally, I should prefer "No." That goes unsaid, doesn't it? I should then be relieved of responsibility; for even Ellaline, knowing that you and I are all in all to each other, could hardly expect me to fly in your face, just to please her. But, on the other hand, if you did think I could do this dreadful thing without СКАЧАТЬ