“Why on earth shouldn’t I know why you are unwilling to have it known, Hope?  You know I am as still as the grave.”

“Have what known, aunt?” asked Hope.

“Why, dear,” replied Mrs. Dinks, confused by Hope’s air of innocence, “your engagement, of course.”

“My engagement?” said Hope, with a look of utter amazement; “to whom, I should like to know?”

Mrs. Dinks looked at her for an instant, and asked, in a clear, dry tone: 

“Are you not engaged to Alfred?”

Hope Wayne’s look of anxious surprise melted into an expression of intense amusement.

“To Alfred Dinks!” said she, in a slow, incredulous tone, and with her eyes sparkling with laughter.  “Why, my dear aunt?”

Mrs. Dinks was overwhelmed by a sudden consciousness of bitter disappointment, mingled with an exasperating conviction that she had been somehow duped.  The tone was thick in which she answered.

“What is the meaning of this?  Hope, are you deceiving me?”

She knew Hope was not deceiving her as well as she knew that they were sitting together in the carriage.

Hope’s reply was a clear, ringing, irresistible laugh.  Then she said,

“It’s high time I went to balls, I see.  I will go to Mrs. Kingfisher’s.  But, dear aunt, have you seriously believed such a story?”

“Do I think my son is a liar?” replied Mrs. Dinks, sardonically.

The laugh faded from Hope’s face.

“Did he say so?” asked she.

“Certainly he did.”

“Alfred Dinks told you I was engaged to him?”

“Alfred Dinks told me you were engaged to him.”

They drove on for some time without speaking.

“What does he mean by using my name in that way?” said Hope, with the Diana look in her eyes.

“Oh! that you must settle with him,” replied the other.  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

And Field-marshal Mrs. Dinks settled herself back upon the seat and said no more.  Hope Wayne sat silent and erect by her side.

CHAPTER XXXI.

AT DELMONICO’S.

Lawrence Newt had watched with the warmest sympathy the rapid development of the friendship between Amy Waring and Hope Wayne.  He aided it in every way.  He called in the assistance of Arthur Merlin, who was in some doubt whether his devotion to his art would allow him to desert it for a moment.  But as the doubt only lasted while Lawrence Newt was unfolding a plan he had of reading books aloud with the ladies—­and—­in fact, a great many other praiseworthy plans which all implied a constant meeting with Miss Waring and Miss Wayne, Mr. Merlin did not delay his co-operation in all Mr. Newt’s efforts.

And so they met at Amy Waring’s house very often and pretended to read, and really did read, several books together aloud.  Ostensibly poetry was pursued at the meetings of what Lawrence Newt called the Round Table.