Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/240

Rh "Very. May I ask whether you have enough guests to make up the caste?"

"We shall be six altogether, as well as our gardener, and—but you'll see us all to-morrow. Good-night."

Jane returned to Lucilla, who had torn off her wig, displaying her little red ears and crushed hair, and was huddling her elderly draperies together in preparation for flight.

"Your Mr. Tombs is rather a lamb," said Jane, "and I do really think you're right about his having a nice face."

"Oh, go away!" said Lucilla, "You've got me into this, and now I shall never get out."

"Why, it's only for once!"

"Is it? Miss Antrobus will ask for Miss Lucas directly she gets here, and I shall have to go on acting and acting and acting, and I can't and won't do it. You'll have to tell them Miss Lucas is dead. I can't bear it and I won't. Why didn't you be an aunt yourself, if you wanted one?"

"I can't act like you," said Jane.

"And Mr. Tombs seeing me looking like a bald-faced stag."

"He didn't know it was you."

"No—that's just it. You don't know what it feels like to be an old woman and have people look at you as if you weren't there." "Well, come and get the rags off," said Jane, "and we'll see if there's any way out of it. I suppose it would be a bit thick to have two aunts and have them appear on alternate evenings? Come on; Forbes will catch us if you don't look out. Suppose Aunt Harriet just receives Miss Antrobus to-morrow, and then she could have an illness."

"And drive twenty guineas a week away for fear of infection? I'd rather go through with it than that," said Lucilla, stumbling up the stairs in her long skirt.

"It needn't be anything catching. She might have bronchitis or asthma—something that lasts for months and doesn't kill you. Or fits . . ."

"I won't have fits," said Lucilla decidedly. "Whatever