Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/108

Rh not to make a stranger of you. I assure you it isn't everyone she'd talk to about our poverty."

The silky smooth tone and the sweet smile should have warned Lucilla; long experience at school might have taught her to recognise the symptoms of Jane at bay—or, rather, Jane with the bit between her teeth. But Lucilla was not quite her acutest self. The waxworks had set her nerves tingling and twittering, and she said:

"I didn't mean to talk about our poverty or anything of the sort."

"I know," said Jane, affecting sympathy, "but one gets led away into these sort of confidences, doesn't one, with congenial people? I feel just the same myself. Now I was going to suggest that Mr.?" She turned to him with raised, interrogative eyebrows.

"Dix," said he.

"Thank you. My name is Quested and my friend's is Craye. I was going to suggest that Mr. Dix should give us his address and we should write to him; then we should have quietly talked over our means between ourselves, you know, Luce dear, and decided what we could or couldn't afford. But since you've taken Mr. Dix into our confidence so fully, dear Luce, concealment is at an end, and Mr. Dix may as well come and talk it over with us. Could you come to tea, Mr. Dix? Next Sunday? Cedar Court, Leabridge, S.E." "Please don't worry about the gardening idea," said Mr. Dix, looking from Jane to Lucilla. "Of course I should be enchanted to be allowed to come to tea, but are you sure . . . I don't want to be a bore."

"Reassure Mr. Dix, Lucy darling," said Jane. "Tell him how pleased we shall be."

Lucilla found it impossible to avoid saying how pleased she would be—but she eyed Jane like a basilisk.

"And now," said Jane, carrying off the situation with graceful aplomb, "we must go and catch trains. And we expect you on Sunday. I think Destiny's certainly meant