Kitty Bircham had been a flirt almost from the time she could speak; but even to a flirt Fate sometimes comes in the midst of her frivolity, as well as to the simplest girl. She had played with so many hearts without being the worse for it, that it was the greatest surprise to herself, as well as to her mother and interested friends, to find that at last this little witch was herself caught. I need not say that the man was the last person whom, in her sober senses, Kitty would have chosen, or any of her family consented to. Man! He was not even a man, but a boy—only two or three years older than herself—a young fellow who had to go through one of those ordeals, quite new-fangled then—things which nobody understood—an examination for an appointment; and who had nothing in the world but the prospect of that, a prospect daily becoming less probable since he and she had fallen in love with each other. They were neither of them of that high strain which is stimulated by love. They had not force of mind to think that every day which was spent in love-making, quarrelling and folly made it less easy for Walter Lawrence to work the next, or to work at all; and that without work he was as little likely to pass his examination as to fly; and that if he did not pass that examination they could not marry.

Both of these young fools knew all this perfectly well, but the knowledge made no difference in their behaviour. When he was not running after her by his own impulse, which was generally the case, Kitty used all her wiles to draw him away from his books, sending him notes, making appointments, inventing ways and means of meeting. His mother made appeals to him with tears in her eyes, and almost cursed the girl who was making her boy lose all his chances; and her mother made Kitty’s life a burden, asking her how she intended to live, and whether she meant to support her husband by her needlework (at which everybody knew she was so clever!), by taking in washing, or by what?—since he neither had a penny nor would ever be able to make one for himself. This discipline on both sides naturally threw these foolish young people more and more into each other’s arms, and the domestic discomforts became so great that it at last became apparent to both that there was nothing for it but to run away.

‘When we are married they will see that it is no use making a fuss,’ Walter said to Kitty. ‘They will acknowledge that once it is done it can’t be undone.’

‘And they must lay their heads together and get you a post, or give us something to live on,’ said Kitty to Walter.

‘They will never let us starve,’ said he ‘after.’

‘And they will never give us any peace,’ said she, ‘before.’

So that they were in perfect accord so far as the theory went. But they hesitated to take that tremendous step; their minds were made up, and it was a delicious subject of conversation during the hours which they daily spent together; but neither of them as yet had quite screwed up courage to the sticking-point.

This was the state of affairs on the evening of the Blencarrow ball. It had happened to both to be unusually tried during that day. Kitty had been scolded by her mother till she did not know, as she said, ‘whether she was standing on her head or her heels.’ Her uncle, who had come from a distant part of the country for Christmas, had been invited to remonstrate with her on her folly. Papa had not said anything, but he had been so snappish that she had not known what to do to please him—papa, who usually stood by her under all circumstances. And Uncle John! Kitty felt that she could not bear such another day. Walter, on his side, had again had a scene with his mother, who had threatened to speak to her trustees, that they might speak to Walter to show him his duty, since he would not listen to her.

It was some time before this suffering pair could get within reach of each other to pour out their several plaints. Kitty had first to dance with half a dozen uninteresting people, and to be brought back demurely to Mrs. Bircham’s side at the end of every tedious dance; and Walter had to ask a corresponding number of young ladies before a happy chance brought them together out of sight of Mrs. Bircham and Mrs. Lawrence, who were both watching with the most anxious eyes. Kitty could not even lose time dancing when they had thus met.

‘Oh, I have a dozen things to tell you!’ she said; ‘I must tell you, or I shall die.’

They went into the conservatory, but there were some people there, and into room after room, without finding a solitary corner. It was in the hall that the dance was going on. The servants were preparing the supper-table in the dining-room. The library was being used by the elder people (horrid elder people, always getting in one’s way, who had no feeling at all!) for their horrid cards. The morning-room was given up to tea. People, i.e., other young pairs, were seated on the stairs and in every available corner.

‘Oh, come down here; there is nobody here,’ said Kitty, drawing her lover to the staircase at the end of a long passage which led down to the lower part of the house.

Both of them knew the house thoroughly, as country neighbours do. They had been all over it when they were children, and knew the way down into the flower-garden, and even the private door at the back, by which tenants and petitioners were admitted to Mrs. Blencarrow’s business-room. The lights were dim in these deserted regions; there was perfect silence and quiet—no other couples to push against, no spying servants nor reproachful seniors. The young pair hurried down the long stairs, feeling the cold of the empty passage grateful and pleasant.

‘The old dining-room is the nicest place,’ said Kitty, leading the way. This room was in the front of the house under the drawing-room, and looked out upon the lawn and flower-beds. It was part of the older house, which had served all the purposes of the Blencarrows in the days when people had not so many wants as now. There was no light in it except a faint glimmer from the fire. The shutters had not been closed, and the moon looked in through the branches of the leafless trees. The two lovers went in with a rush and sat down with quiet satisfaction upon a sofa just within the door.

‘Nobody will disturb us here,’ whispered Kitty with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘We can stay as long as we like here.’

They were both out of breath from their rush; and to find themselves alone in the dark, and in a place where they had no right to be, was delightful. They sat quiet for a moment, leaning against each other recovering their breath, and then there happened something which, notwithstanding Kitty’s intense preoccupation with her own affairs, gave her such a prick of still more vivid curiosity as roused every sense and faculty in her. She became all ear and all observation in a moment. There was a soft sound as of a door opening on the other side of the room—the side that was in the shade—and then after a moment a voice asked, ‘Is it you?’

Walter (the idiot) suppressed with pain a giggle, and only suppressed it because Kitty flung herself upon him, putting one hand upon his mouth and clutching his coat with the other to keep him quiet. She held her breath and became noiseless as a mouse—as a kitten in the moment before a spring. The voice was a man’s voice, with something threatening in its tone.

‘How long do you think this is going to last?’ he said.

Oh, what a foolish thing a boy is! Walter shook with laughter, while she listened as if for life and death.

Then there was a pause. Again the voice asked anxiously, ‘Is it you?’—another pause, and then the soft closing of the door more cautiously than it had been opened.

Walter rose up from the sofa as soon as the door was shut. ‘I must get my laugh out,’ he whispered, sweeping Kitty out into the passage. Oh, that foolish, foolish boy! As if it were a laughing matter! A man, a stranger, asking somebody how long ‘this’ was to last! How long what was to last? And who could he be?

‘Oh, Wat, you might have stayed a moment!’ Kitty said, exasperated; ‘you might have kept quiet! Perhaps he would have said something more. Who could he be?’

‘It is no business of ours,’ said Walter; ‘one of the servants, I suppose. Let’s go upstairs again, Kitty. We have no business here.’

‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ cried Kitty; ‘we must find a quiet place, for I’ve scores of things to tell you. There is a room at the other end with a light in it. Let us go there.’

Their footsteps sounded upon the stone passage, and Kitty’s dress rustled—there could be no eavesdropping possible there. She went on a step in front of him and pushed open a door which was ajar; then Kitty gave a little shriek and fell back, but too late. Mrs. Blencarrow, in all her splendour for the ball, was standing before the fire. It was a plainly-furnished room, with a large writing-table in it, and shelves containing account books and papers—the business-room, where nobody except the tenants and the workpeople ever came in. To see her standing there, with all her diamonds flashing in the dimness, was the strangest sight.

‘Who is there?’ she cried, with an angry voice; then, ‘Kitty! What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Blencarrow. We did not know what room it was. We couldn’t find a cool place. Indeed,’ said Kitty, recovering her courage, ‘we couldn’t find a place at all, there is such a crowd—and we thought the house was all open to-night, and that we might come downstairs.’

Mrs. Blencarrow looked at them both with the fullest straight look of those eyes, whose candour was sometimes thought to mean defiance. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that though the house is all open to-night, Walter and you should not make yourselves remarkable by stealing away together. I ought, perhaps, to tell your mother.’

‘Oh, don’t, Mrs. Blencarrow!’

‘It is very foolish of you both.’

‘It was my fault, Mrs. Blencarrow. Don’t let Kitty be blamed. I remembered the old way into the garden.’

‘I hope you did not intend to go into the garden this cold night. Run upstairs at once, you foolish children!’ She hesitated a moment, and then said, with one of her sudden blushes dyeing her countenance: ‘I have got a bad headache; the music is a little too loud. I came down here for a moment’s quiet, and to get some eau de Cologne.’

‘Dear Mrs. Blencarrow,’ cried Kitty, too much unnerved for the moment to make any comments upon the lady’s look or manner, ‘don’t please say anything to mamma.’

Mrs. Blencarrow shook her head at them, looking from one to another, which meant gentle reproof of their foolishness, but then nodded an assent to Kitty’s prayer. But she pointed to the door at the same time, rather impatiently, as if she wanted to be rid of them; and, glad to escape so easily, they hastened away. Kitty felt the relief of having escaped so strongly that she never even asked herself why Mrs. Blencarrow should come down to the business-room in the middle of a ball, or if that was a likely place to find eau de Cologne. She thought of nothing (for the moment) but that she had got off rather well from what might have been an embarrassing situation.

‘I don’t think she’ll tell on us,’ Kitty said, with a long-drawn breath.

‘I am sure she will not,’ said Walter, as they ran up the long stone flight of stairs, and came back to the sound of music and dancing.

Mrs. Bircham had just broken the monotony of a chaperon’s vigil by taking a cup of tea. She was issuing forth from the door of the tea-room upon the arm of one of those portly old gentlemen who are there for the purpose, when Kitty, breathless with haste, pushing Walter along in front of her, suddenly came within her mother’s view.

That mother’s side Kitty did not again leave, save for the brief limits of a dance, all the evening. She read in the glance with which she was regarded from time to time the lecture that was in store for her. Indeed, she knew it all by heart; there was no novelty in it for Kitty. She gave Walter a despairing look as he passed her by, and they had time for a moment’s whisper as to the spot where they must meet to-morrow; for all that she had intended to confide to him lay still in Kitty’s heart unrevealed, and she began to feel that affairs had come to a crisis which demanded action at last.