Cynthia looked extremely annoyed.
"It was the one thing I stipulated for--secrecy."
"But why?" said Mr. Gibson. "I can understand your not wishing to
have it made public under the present circumstances. But the nearest
friends on both sides! Surely you can have no objection to that?"
"Yes, I have," said Cynthia; "I would not have had any one know if I
could have helped it."
"I'm almost certain Roger will tell his father."
"No, he won't," said Cynthia; "I made him promise, and I think he is
one to respect a promise"--with a glance at her mother, who, feeling
herself in disgrace with both husband and child, was keeping a
judicious silence.
"Well, at any rate, the story would come with so much better a grace
from him that I shall give him the chance; I won't go over to the
Hall till the end of the week; he may have written and told his
father before then."
Cynthia held her tongue for a little while. Then she said, with
tearful pettishness,--
"A man's promise is to override a woman's wish, then, is it?"
"I don't see any reason why it should not."
"Will you trust in my reasons when I tell you it will cause me
a great deal of distress if it gets known?" She said this in so
pleading a voice, that if Mr. Gibson had not been thoroughly
displeased and annoyed by his previous conversation with her mother,
he must have yielded to her. As it was, he said, coldly,--"Telling
Roger's father is not making it public. I don't like this exaggerated
desire for such secrecy, Cynthia. It seems to me as if something more
than is apparent was concealed behind it."
"Come, Molly," said Cynthia, suddenly; "let us sing that duet I've
been teaching you; it's better than talking as we are doing."
It was a little lively French duet. Molly sang it carelessly, with
heaviness at her heart; but Cynthia sang it with spirit and apparent
merriment; only she broke down in hysterics at last, and flew
upstairs to her own room. Molly, heeding nothing else--neither her
father nor Mrs. Gibson's words--followed her, and found the door of
her bedroom locked, and for all reply to her entreaties to be allowed
to come in, she heard Cynthia sobbing and crying.
It was more than a week after the incidents just recorded before
Mr. Gibson found himself at liberty to call on the Squire; and he
heartily hoped that long before then, Roger's letter might have
arrived from Paris, telling his father the whole story. But he saw at
the first glance that the Squire had heard nothing unusual to disturb
his equanimity. He was looking better than he had done for months
past; the light of hope was in his eyes, his face seemed of a healthy
ruddy colour, gained partly by his resumption of outdoor employment
in the superintendence of the works, and partly because the happiness
he had lately had through Roger's means, caused his blood to flow
with regular vigour. He had felt Roger's going away, it is true; but
whenever the sorrow of parting with him pressed too heavily upon him,
he filled his pipe, and smoked it out over a long, slow, deliberate,
re-perusal of Lord Hollingford's letter, every word of which he knew
by heart; but expressions in which he made a pretence to himself
of doubting, that he might have an excuse for looking at his son's
praises once again. The first greetings over, Mr. Gibson plunged into
his subject.