Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/301

 It was one of the most uncomfortable I have ever eaten. The atmosphere of crisis seemed to have penetrated even to the kitchen. The sole was overdone and the quail wasn't done at all, and the Aunt's views upon romantic attachments were positively indecent."

"Hadn't you better begin at the beginning?" suggested Beresford quietly.

"The Aunt seemed anxious that I should begin before the beginning," he replied, "hence I am here for the purpose of settling with Miss Craven the amount she will accept to release you, Richard, from her clutches." He looked across at Lola. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes dancing with amusement. "By implication I was given to understand that the responsibility for your faux pas, Richard, rested mainly with me."

"With you!" repeated Beresford, as he looked up from lighting a cigarette.

Drewitt inclined his head. "If I had sought to exercise a better influence upon your early and callow youth, the Aunt thinks that this would not have occurred."

"Has it not occurred to her that possibly Richard might—might not want to be freed?" asked Lola.

"Nothing so transcendently romantic would ever strike a member of our family," said Drewitt, shaking his head with conviction. "With the Aunt marriages are made in heaven, after satisfactory enquiries have first been made on earth," he said.