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Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension

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<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <h3>OVER THE TEA AND THE TOAST</h3> The next morning there were, at least, three eventful breakfasts "partaken of," as it was once the fashion to say; one at "The Wilderness," one at the Savoy, and one at the Kyneston town house in Prince's Gate. When Professor Marmion came down he was a little late, for he had done a long night's work, finishing his lecture-notes to his own satisfaction, or, at least, as nearly as he could get there. Like all good workers, he was never quite satisfied with what he did. When the maid had closed the door of the breakfast-room, he looked across the table at his daughter with a twinkle in his eyes, and said: "Niti, before Lord Leighton left last night he had a talk with me, and you were partly the subject of it." "And who might have been the other part of the subject, Dad?" she asked, with excellently simulated composure. "That, Niti," he replied slowly, "I expect you know quite as well as I do. I am inclined to consider myself the victim of something very like a conspiracy."[Pg 158] "I think you are quite right, Dad," she replied, with perfect calmness. "But the chief conspirators were the Fates themselves. We others only did as we had to do. When you have solved that problem of N to the fourth, I think you will see that we could really have done nothing else, because, if you once crossed the border-line—the horizon which Professor Cayley spoke of, I mean—you ought to be on speaking terms with them." Before he replied to this somewhat searching remark, the man who had crossed the horizon emptied his coffee cup, and set it down in the saucer with a perceptible rattle. Then he said more slowly than before: "My dear Niti, there are other mysteries than N to the fourth. I only wish now to confess frankly to you that I have tried to solve one of them, perhaps the greatest of all, and ignominiously failed. I learnt a great deal last night from a young man to whom I thought I could have taught anything, and I got up this morning in a distinctly chastened frame of mind; and so, to make a long story short, if you like to drive into town and bring Commander Merrill back to lunch, I shall be very pleased to have a chat with him afterwards." The next moment Nitocris was on the other side of the table, with her arm round her father's shoulders. She kissed him, and whispered: "You dearest of dears! If I could have loved you any more, I would now, but I can't. I won't drive into town, because Brenda's coming out with[Pg 159] Lord Leighton in her new motor to fetch me; at least, she will, if other papas have been as delightful as you have been." He put his hand up and stroked her cheek with a gesture that was older than she was, and said with a smile which meant more than she could comprehend: "Ah! so it was a conspiracy, after all! Well, dear, I hope that, for all your sakes, it will turn out a successful one." About the same time Brenda was saying to her parents: "Poppa and Mammy, I've got some news to tell you, and I've slept on it, so as to make quite sure about the telling." "And what might that be, Brenda?" asked her mother, looking up a trifle anxiously. "Nothing very serious, I hope." "Anything connected with the Marmions?" asked her father, in a voice that sounded as though it had come from somewhere far away. He had the Times propped up against the sugar basin on his left hand, and he had just read the announcement of Franklin Marmion's lecture for the following evening, and this was quite a serious matter for him. "It's connected with them in this way," said Brenda, leaning her elbows on the table. "You and Uncle have wanted a coronet in the family, and you know that I've refused three, because the men who wore them weren't fit to respect, to say nothing about loving. Well, I've just discovered[Pg 160] that I do love a man who has one coronet now, and will have another some day, unless something unexpected happens to him; but mind, it's the man I love and want to marry, and I'd want to do it just the same if he was still the same man he is, and hadn't either a coronet or a dollar to his name." "That's like you, Brenda, and it sounds good," said her father, tearing his attention away from the alluring title of Franklin Marmion's lecture. "Now, who is it?" "If it was only that nice young man, Lord Leighton!" said Mrs van Huysman, in a voice that sounded like an appeal against the final judgment of human fate, "but, of course, he's——" "No, Mammy, that's just what he's not going to do," exclaimed Brenda, sitting up and clasping her hands behind her neck. "Nitocris Marmion is in love with some one else, and Lord Leighton is in love with me—at least he said so last night at 'The Wilderness,' and I don't suppose he'd have said it if he hadn't meant it—and I told him to go and ask his Papa: and now I'm going to ask my Poppa and Mammy if I may be Lady Leighton soon, and, perhaps, some day Countess of Kyneston. You see, Lord Leighton is just a viscount now——" "What, just a viscount!" exclaimed Mrs van Huysman, getting up from her chair and putting a plump arm round her neck. "Just a viscount—and heir to one of the oldest peerages in England! Oh, Brenda, is it really true?"[Pg 161] "I guess Brenda wouldn't say it if it wasn't, and that's about all there is to it," said her father, putting his long arm out over the table. "I congratulate you, my girl. Mammy and I may have been a bit troubled over some of those other refusals of yours, but you seem to have known best, after all: and I reckon your Uncle Ephraim'll think the same. Lord Leighton's a man right through. He wouldn't have done what he has done if he hadn't been. Shake, child, and——" Brenda "shook," and then, without another word, she got up and hurried out of the room. "The girl's right!" said Professor van Huysman, as the door closed behind her; "and if I'm not a fool entirely, she's found the right man." "Hoskins, you can leave that to a well-brought-up girl like Brenda all the time. She is right, and all we've got to hope for now is that the Earl will be right too," said his wife somewhat anxiously. "He's just got to see our girl and then he will be, unless he's a natural born idiot, which, of course, he couldn't be," replied Brenda's father in a tone of absolute conviction. "Now, I wonder what that man Marmion's going to let loose on us to-morrow night?" "Good morning, sir," said Lord Leighton, as his father came into the breakfast-room at about the same time that Brenda left the other room in the Savoy. "Good morning, Lester," replied the Earl of Kyneston, as father and son shook hands in the[Pg 162] old courtly fashion which, within the last half century, has gone out of vogue save among those who have ancestors whose record is a credit to their descendants. "You are looking very well and fit—and there is something else. What is it? Had you a very pleasant evening yesterday at 'The Wilderness'? Has Miss Marmion revoked her decision after all?" "No, sir," said his son, looking at him with brightening eyes; "but she convinced me that I had thought myself in love with the wrong girl—and the other girl was on the lawn at the same time, talking with the man that Miss Marmion was, and is in love with, and will be always, I think." "And the other young lady, Lester—because, of course, she is a lady, I mean in our sense of the word, much misunderstood as it is in these days?" "She is Brenda van Huysman, sir." "Oh, the Professor's daughter.—I mean the other Professor's daughter. A very good family. Her father is a distinguished man, and, if I remember rightly, a Van Huysman was one of the first colonisers of New England about four hundred years ago. It is the same family, I suppose?" "Yes, sir; I can vouch for that." Nitocris had given him the whole history of the family, and so he was sure of his facts. "Lester, I congratulate you," replied his father, taking his arm, as they were accustomed to.[Pg 163] "While you have been away digging among those Egyptian tombs and temples, this girl has refused at least three coronets, and one had strawberry leaves on it; so she loves you for yourself. That is good, other things being equal, as I think they will be in this case. Now, we will go to breakfast, and you shall tell me the whole story. I have not heard a real love story for a good many years."[Pg 164] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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