Part 63

"Oh, dear, I feel as if something horrid was going to happen!" I said to Sally, when they had gone.

"Pooh!" said she. "I should be sorry for the animal who tried to play tricks with that young man. You'll find you haven't known him, till you see him on a horse."

"I daresay I'm silly," I admitted. "But I have a presentiment of something. Let's go and sit out on the verandah and watch. We can't see the barn, but if they come out in the farm road we shall catch sight of them."

"All right," said Sally. "The sun's hot on the verandah; but that's a detail."

Already Jim and Mr. Trowbridge had disappeared, but as we were choosing the coolest place for our chairs, we saw a dusty, nondescript old vehicle rattling up the maple avenue, and just about to turn into the narrow road which leads round the side of the house. The hood was up to protect the passengers from the sun, so at first we could see only the driver, and gather an indistinct impression that there were two figures in the back seat.

"Visitors," said I. "I didn't know Mrs. Trowbridge was expecting----" Then I broke off with a little gasp.

"Oh, Sally, it's----"

"The Duke and Katherine!" she gurgled.

All my blood raced up to my head, as if I were going to have a sunstroke.

"No wonder I had a presentiment," I groaned, forgetting my fright about the horse, for a moment. "Do stand by me."

"I will," said Sally.

Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls were busy in the kitchen, making peach jam; so when the wretched old chaise drew up close to the verandah, Sally and I were alone to receive it.

If my sense of humour hadn't been trampled upon by various emotions which were all jumping about at the same time, I should have had hard work not to laugh when Stan and Mrs. Ess Kay scrambled out from under the lumbering old hood, which was like a great coal scuttle turned over their heads. Their hair was grey with dust, their faces purple with heat, and evidently they were both in towering tempers.

Stan looked at me the way he did once when I was small and spoiled his favourite cricket bat by digging up worms with it;--as if he could have shaken me well and boxed my ears, and would if I weren't a girl. As for Mrs. Ess Kay, she smiled; but her smile meant worse things than Stan's frown.

"Hullo, dear boy," I chirped, nervously. "How do you do, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox?"

Sally murmured something, too, and Stan had the grace to claw off his hat, showing how damp his poor hair was on his crimson forehead, but he didn't even pretend to smile.

"A nice dance you've led us," said he. "By Jove, I wouldn't have thought it of you, Betty."

"Maybe you don't understand yet," said I. "Wait till I've explained, and I'm sure you won't be cross, because you always were a dear."

"It's no good wheedling," he grumbled. "I'm not going to wait for anything. We've come to take you home, and the quicker you pack up and get ready the better."

"What do you mean by home?" I enquired.

"To Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's house in New York, where she says she'll be good enough to put us up till the next decent ship sails for England."

"I'm not going back to Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's," said I. "She knows why it's impossible."

"Rot," said Stan. "She's jolly kind to have you, after the way you've acted. Anybody'd think you were eight, instead of eighteen. You deserve to be put on bread and water for making me come three thousand miles to fetch you home."

"I didn't ask you to come," said I, "and you needn't have bothered. Is Vic engaged yet?"

"Yes, she is; the day before I started. What's that got to do with it?"

"A good deal, according to her," I replied. "I'm engaged, too."

"The dickens you are!" exclaimed Stan, getting redder than ever, while Mrs. Ess Kay gave a little start and glared at Sally.

My blood was up now, and I didn't care what I said. The sooner Stan knew everything just as it was, the better.