False Colours Read Online Free PDF Page B

confidence from me.’ He paused, his eyelids puckering, as though he were trying to bring some remote object into focus. ‘If he were in some fix from which I couldn’t help him to escape—if he were forced into doing something repugnant to him—’
    ‘Oh, no, no, no!’ cried Lady Denville distressfully. ‘It is not repugnant to him, and he was not forced into it! He discussed it with me in the most reasonable manner, saying that while he was resolved on matrimony, he believed it would suit him best to—to enter upon a contract in the old-fashioned way, without violence of feeling on either side. And I must say, Kit, that I think he is very right, for the females he falls in love with are never eligible—in fact, excessively ineligible! Moreover, he is so very prone to fall in love, poor boy, that it is of the first importance to arrange a match for him with a sensible, well-bred girl who won’t break her heart, or come to points with him, every time she discovers that he has a chère amie .’
    ‘Of the first importance—!’ he exclaimed. ‘For Evelyn, of all men! I collect that if she is sufficiently indifferent and well-bred nothing else is of consequence! She may be bran-faced or swivel-eyed or—’
    ‘On the contrary! It goes without saying that there must be nothing in her appearance to give Evelyn a disgust of her; and also that each of them should be ready to like the other.’
    He sprang up, ejaculating: ‘Oh, good God!’ He glanced down at her, his eyes very bright, but not with laughter. ‘ You made such a marriage, Mama! Is that what you wish Evelyn to do? Is it?’
    She did not answer for a moment; and when she did speak it was with a little constriction. ‘I didn’t make such a marriage, Kit. Your father fell in love with me. The Fancots said he was besotted, but nothing would turn him from his determination to marry me. And I—well, I was just seventeen, and he was so handsome, so exactly like the heroes schoolgirls dream of—! But the Fancots were right: we were very ill-suited.’
    He said, in an altered tone: ‘I didn’t know—I beg your pardon, Mama!—I shouldn’t have spoken to you so. But you haven’t told me the truth. All this talk of Evelyn’s being resolved on matrimony ,as though he were four-and-thirty rather than four-and-twenty—! Flummery!’
    ‘I have told you the truth!’ she declared indignantly. She read disbelief in his face, and amended this statement. ‘Well, some of it, anyway!’
    He could not help smiling at this. ‘Tell me all the truth! A little while ago you said it was my uncle’s fault—also your fault—but in what conceivable way could either of you make it necessary for Evelyn to contract a marriage of convenience? Evelyn doesn’t depend on my uncle for his livelihood, nor is he answerable to him for anything he may choose to do! The only power my uncle has is to refuse to permit him to spend any part of his principal—if he should wish to do so!’
    ‘But that is just what he does wish to do!’ she replied. ‘At least, I can’t suppose that he wishes to do it precisely—except that it would be a great relief to him to be rid of all the worry and bother of my debts.’
    ‘Your debts! But—Is Miss Stavely an heiress? and is Evelyn crazy enough to imagine that he will be able to dispose of her fortune as he pleases? It isn’t possible!’
    ‘No, and he wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, if it were! He means to settle my debts out of his own fortune.
    He says—and you did too, Kit!—that Papa should have done so, and that it is just the same as if he had. And also he says that he is determined your uncle shall know nothing about it. So he went to see him, to try if he couldn’t prevail upon him to end the Trust—putting it on the score of his age, and how much he dislikes being treated as though he were a schoolboy. Which is true, Kit!’
    ‘Yes, I know it is. What had my uncle to say to that?’
    ‘Well, he didn’t say