Cotillion by Georgette Heyer Page B

turned to look admiringly at Freddy, and to thank him for his kind offices. “I had no notion you could be so clever!” she told him.
    Mr. Standen blushed, and disclaimed. “Made it all up beforehand,” he explained. “Daresay you wouldn’t think of it, but the fellow was bound to start nosing out your business. Oughtn’t to be out alone, you know. Ought to have brought the Fish with you.”
    “But, Freddy, you must see that I couldn’t run away to London if I brought Fish! She would never consent!”
    “Mustn’t run away to London,” said Freddy. “Been thinking about that, and it won’t do. Pity, but there it is!”
    “You don’t feel that there might be something I could do to support myself?” asked Miss Charing, with a last flicker of hope. “Of course, I don’t wish to starve, but do you think I should? Truthfully , Freddy?”
    Keeping his inevitable reflections to himself, Mr. Standen lied manfully. “Sure of it!” he said.
    “Not if I became a chambermaid!” said Kitty, suddenly inspired. “Hugh says I am too young to be a housekeeper, but I could be a chambermaid!”
    Mr. Standen brought her firmly back to earth. “No sense in that. Might as well stay at Arnside. Better, in fact.”
    “Yes, I suppose I might,” she said despondently. “Only I would like so much to escape! I do try not to be ungrateful, but oh, Freddy, if you knew what it is like, keeping house for Uncle Matthew, and reading to him, and pouring out his horrid draughts, and never speaking to anyone but him and Fish! It makes me wish he never had adopted me!”
    “Must be devilish,” nodded Mr. Standen, ladling punch into one of the glasses. “Can’t think why he did adopt you. Often puzzled me.”
    “Yes, it used to puzzle me too, but Fish thinks that he formed a lasting passion for my mama.”
    “Sort of thing she would think,” remarked Freddy. “If you ask me, he never formed a lasting passion for anyone but himself. I mean, look at him!”
    “Yes, but I do feel she may be right,” Kitty insisted. “He hardly ever speaks of her, except when he says I am not nearly as pretty as she was, but he has her likeness. He keeps it in his desk, and he showed it to me once, when I was a little girl.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t have believed it!” said Freddy, apparently convinced.
    “No, but I fancy it was so. Because George, you know, thought I was Uncle Matthew’s daughter. Hugh said that he never did so, but I have a strong notion he did!”
    “Shouldn’t think so at all,” said Freddy. “George might, because he’s a gudgeon. Daresay Dolph might, but nobody else would. In fact, Dolph wouldn’t either, because he don’t think anything. If you was my uncle’s daughter, he wouldn’t behave so shabbily. Wouldn’t want to leave his money to one of us, either.”
    “N-no. I daresay he might wish me to marry one of his great-nephews, but he wouldn’t cut me off without a penny if I refused, would he?”
    “He don’t mean to do that?” exclaimed Freddy, shocked.
    She nodded, and gave a rather watery sniff into his handkerchief. “Yes, he does, and of course I quite see that I can never hope to form an eligible connection if I’m to be a pauper. It makes me feel horridly low!”
    “What you need, Kit, is a drop of something to put some heart into you,” said Freddy decidedly. “If you won’t take some ratafia—mind, I don’t say I blame you!—you’d better have a mouthful of this. It ain’t the right thing, but who’s to know?”
    Miss Charing accepted a half-filled glass, and sipped cautiously. The pungency of the spirit was inclined to catch the back of her throat, but the sweetness and the unmistakeable tang of lemon-juice reassured her. “I like it,” she said.
    “Yes, but don’t go telling my uncle, or the Fish, that you’ve been drinking punch with me,” he warned her.
    She assured him that she would not; and since she was now quite warm, and was finding the settle uncomfortable, joined