Towards the end of June Caroline went to London to stay with Beatrix for a day or two. Beatrix had summoned her. She depended a good deal on Caroline now. She had asked Maurice to come, too, but he could not leave his work.

The morning after she had arrived Beatrix came into her room with a letter. Dick had gone off early to his ship. "What does this mean? Surely it can't be true!" she said.

The letter was from her father. They were to have dined with him that evening. He was going off to Spain, on banking business, that day. He expected to be in Madrid and Barcelona about a week, and on his way back he should take Barbara to Switzerland for a fortnight or so, and then bring her home. Beatrix was to tell Caroline, and he would write to them from abroad. No time for more now, as he was going off in such a hurry. Then came a postcript. "Have you heard of Ella's engagement? Sir John Ambleside. He's a nice fellow, and just the right age for her. Write and congratulate her."

They stared at one another, utterly surprised. It was four months now since Caroline had come home, and the idea of a marriage between their father and Ella had been discussed between them. Since then they had come to take it quite for granted. Ella had been in London ever since, except for two week-end visits to Surley, and one to Abington, when there had been so large a party of relations and friends that it had seemed as if the occasion would be chosen to make an announcement. That was a month ago, at Whitsuntide. Neither of them had seen Ella since, and their father had only once been down to Abington.

"Sir John Ambleside," said Caroline. "That's the Beckleys' cousin, that Jimmy told Bunting about. But—"

"Poor old Daddy. He's running away," said Beatrix. "But how beastly of her!"

They tried to adjust their recollections. They had taken it for granted. Had they had reason, or had they been mistaken all the time?

"Of course, she's never given a hint," said Caroline.

"Oh, my dear! You saw how she was with him at Whitsuntide."

"Not really very different from what she has always been. Perhaps gayer, and rather more at home. At least we thought so."

"I'm sure the poor old darling was in love with her. He was as happy as a king all that time. I know the signs."

"But nothing happened. Surely, if it had been as we thought they would have got engaged then, or before."

"Perhaps he was waiting until he was quite certain, and this has happened since—her falling in love with that other man. I shan't congratulate her. I think she has behaved very badly. Poor old Daddy! It's frightfully rough luck on him."

"He doesn't want anything said about it, though. I wish he hadn't gone away alone. I'm glad he's going to take Barbara away when he comes back."

"I wish I knew exactly what had happened."

"Perhaps Aunt Mary will have heard something. We shall see her to-day. She will certainly have something to say about it."

They lunched with Lady Grafton, and she had a good deal to say about it. The announcement of the engagement had appeared in the 'Morning Post' that morning, and had taken her by surprise, though she would not admit quite how much it had taken her by surprise.

"He's been dancing after her," she said; "but nobody thought she would accept him. You know I blame you two girls more than anybody."

"Of course you do, darling," said Beatrix. "But we should like to know why, all the same."

"You've stuck up your noses at it. Poor dear George, like most men of his age who are in love, is sensitive to ridicule. He never could bring himself up to the point of proposing because he was afraid that he'd look like a fool. That party at the Abbey was the greatest possible mistake. I said so at the time."

"Who did you say it to, darling?" asked Beatrix. "You told me that it was the very thing to bring it on. But I suppose you thought I was in a delicate state and must be humoured."

"Yes, it's all very well to treat it like that," said Lady Grafton. "But if it hadn't been for you it would certainly have been brought to a point then. They were both ready for it, and Ella Carruthers knew perfectly well that she had been asked down there to be proposed to. It was you and Caroline who stopped it, and I'm exceedingly annoyed with you, though I try not to show it."

"You don't try very hard, dear," said Caroline. "We expected it, too, and if we weren't quite ready for it at first we had got quite used to it by that time."

"We both showed it, too," said Beatrix. "We were as sweet to Ella as only we know how to be; and we took a great deal of pains to show darling Daddy that we were pleased with him. He knew that we knew all right, and were only waiting."

"Yes, and how did you show it? By hanging round him the whole time, and petting him as if you were children, instead of—"

"Instead of great girls of twenty-one and twenty-two," suggested Beatrix. "That's how we always have treated him, and always shall."

"Two married women," proceeded Lady Grafton.

"And one of them soon to become a mother," added Beatrix.

"Nobody was ever allowed to forget that," retorted Lady Grafton. "It was crammed down Ella's throat that she would be a step-grandmamma, and George could never move anywhere without you flopping about him and calling him 'Daddy darling.' There wasn't much 'Daddy darling' when you fell fatuously in love, and treated him as if he counted for about as much as old Jarvis. Then there was Caroline—"

"Oh, it's my turn now," said Caroline.

"Yes, you were almost as bad. You've left his house, but you come up every day to see that his sheets are properly aired, and send out in the middle of dinner to see whether his hot water bottle is filled."

"Oh, Aunt Mary!"

"Well, that's the impression you give everybody. You made him look like an elderly man, when if you'd let him alone he'd have seemed quite like a young one. How would you have liked it yourselves, if you'd been in Ella's place? She's only a year or two older than you. Probably what put her off was that she was afraid you'd be calling her 'Mummy darling!'"

"Oh, it was she that was put off!" said Caroline. "You said at first that it was Dad, because we turned up our noses at it."

"I've no patience with you," concluded Lady Grafton, ignoring this.

"No, you don't seem to have much, darling," said Beatrix sweetly. "You're all wrong though. Caroline and I have been talking it over. We think that she was almost ready to marry him then. She behaved to us as if she were. We can't tell you how, but we both felt the same about it. She wanted to know how we should take it, and we let her know that we should be pleased. We understood each other perfectly, though not a word was said directly."

"I wish I'd said a word, directly. It only wanted that. One is afraid of interfering, and then one wakes up to find everything has gone wrong."

"If only you'd interfered with us all a little more, darling, how much happier we should have been," said Beatrix. "What Caroline and I think is that she never could quite make up her mind, and he wouldn't say anything till he saw that she had."

"That's how it's supposed to have happened with you, isn't it? It isn't every man who expects the woman he's in love with to fall down and cuddle his boots."

"Don't be tart, darling. It doesn't suit you, really, though you think it does."

"She found out after all that she wanted somebody younger," said Caroline.

"Yes, that's what you'd think. The truth of it is you've both been scratching each other's backs. 'Of course he'd want what Dick wanted in you, darling,' and 'Of course she'd want somebody more like Maurice, dearie.' To any sensible woman George is worth Dick and Maurice put together. Well, I don't know what has happened. I think she would have had him a month ago, if he'd asked her. I've hardly seen her since. At any rate, it's all over. George won't marry now. This was the only chance. He wouldn't marry for the sake of marrying, and he wouldn't go about looking for somebody to fall in love with. You've stopped his doing either, till it's too late. But with somebody provided for him, so to speak, who would just suit him, and could make him fall in love with her into the bargain—it would have been simply ideal. Now the poor man has got to fly off and forget all about it. Of course he won't forget all about it for a long time. He'll feel himself old all of a sudden, and know that he'll have to go on getting older for the rest of his life. I'm furious about it."

Caroline and Beatrix went on to see Lady Handsworth. They agreed on the way there that Aunt Mary was really rather sweet about their father, though she always tried to be too clever. It was hard lines on the poor old darling, and they would have to do their best to prevent him feeling he was getting old. It seemed that he actually had run away. Uncle James had said that somebody from the Bank was to have been sent to Spain in a day or two, but that he had suddenly announced his intention of going himself, immediately. He had said nothing about the engagement, but he must have known of it when he made his decision, as he had written to Beatrix that afternoon.

Lady Handsworth was concerned about the news. "I did hope that she would have married your father," she said. "But I never felt quite so sure about it as Mary, and others, have. I think she could never quite make up her mind. Sir John Ambleside has been rather determined in his wooing, and I suppose it came to a point where George held back, not liking to put himself into rivalry with a much younger man."

"I think that's much the most likely thing to have happened," said Caroline. "But he did love her, I'm pretty sure, and I'm most awfully sorry for him."

"So am I," said Lady Handsworth. "But he will get over it, perhaps sooner than one might think. A man of his age never lets himself quite go, unless he's absolutely sure. He knows, for one thing, that life isn't all made up of love, and if he has had a blow he can look forward to the time when he will have left off feeling it. Besides, your father hasn't lost the love that he has always had, and that has been enough for him hitherto."

This was more consoling than Lady Grafton's statement that it was all their fault. Of course he hadn't lost their love; it was stronger than ever, because he would depend upon them more than if Ella had gone to him to fill their place.

"I'm afraid I was rather selfish when I found out how much I loved Dick," Beatrix said, when they had left Lady Handsworth. "Dick says I was, himself, and that if I had made a little more fuss with Daddy he wouldn't have wanted to go off loving somebody else. I loved him just the same, but I suppose I didn't think enough that he'd want me to show it. Still, you haven't been like that. You're more thoughtful than I am, dearest. I don't think it would have made much difference. I think Aunt Mary was right there. It was Ella making up to him that led him on—even if she didn't mean to lead him on so far."

"I shall write to her," said Caroline. "He asks us to. He won't want us not to be friends; and I suppose she will still be living at Surley sometimes."

Both of them wrote. Ella's answers were affectionate, but it seemed to them a little shame-faced. She said very little to them about the man she was going to marry, though it would have been natural for her to expatiate upon him to such intimate friends. Her only reference to Grafton was in her letter to Caroline, in which she said: "I told dear Mr. Grafton before anybody, and he was so sweet about it, and has promised me a very handsome wedding present."

Caroline had a letter from Barbara after she went home. Barbara was in a heaven of delight. She had seen her father on his way through Paris, and was preparing to go off with him on his way back.

"How silly I was to bother myself and all of you about Ella," she wrote. "Dad told me she was going to be married to that little ass Jimmy's cousin. Dad was quite pleased about it. He was awfully sweet to me, and says he is longing to have me at home to look after him. It will be spiffing fun going to Switzerland together. The darling old thing wants a holiday. He says he's been working rather hard at the Bank, and he certainly looks rather run down. I shall take the utmost possible care of him. He bought me a hat in the Rue de la Paix. Ser-wish!"