Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/271



" you clear out," said Jane next morning. "Go right off into the garden while I tackle the Antrobus and the halberdiers and the engines of war. It was all my doing, and I'll take what's left of the bother. You've had more than your share, you poor old martyr. I'll do it directly after breakfast."

But it appeared that Miss Antrobus had gone out before breakfast and had not returned. Lucilla wondered miserably whether the anxious reformer had gone to interview the Society for the Protection of Aged Relatives. After breakfast she withdrew to the garden with basket and scissors, and it was here that Mr. Thornton—the one called Bill—came upon her among the early chrysanthemums.

"I say," he began, "about last night. I want you to forget it."

Charles Reade supplied Lucilla with a sufficiently apt quotation.

"Never remind a lady of what you wish her to forget," she said.

"Now that's most awfully good of you," he said. "But I do want to say that I really am not the bounding ass you must be thinking me. The fact is, my profession doesn't bring me the acquaintance of people like you and your cousin. And the war was so damnable—I beg your pardon. And the afterwards. Do you know, we three nearly starved before we got hold of a paying profession—I mean paying engagements? Oh, we're all right now, but—that sort of thing half turns your head. We've slept on the Embankment,