“I was just telling the Baroness,” Acton observed.

“Mr. Acton was apparently about to announce his own engagement,” said Eugenia.

Mr. Wentworth’s jocosity increased.  “It is not exactly that; but it is in the family.  Clifford, hearing this morning that Mr. Brand had expressed a desire to tie the nuptial knot for his sister, took it into his head to arrange that, while his hand was in, our good friend should perform a like ceremony for himself and Lizzie Acton.”

The Baroness threw back her head and smiled at her uncle; then turning, with an intenser radiance, to Robert Acton, “I am certainly very stupid not to have thought of that,” she said.  Acton looked down at his boots, as if he thought he had perhaps reached the limits of legitimate experimentation, and for a moment Eugenia said nothing more.  It had been, in fact, a sharp knock, and she needed to recover herself.  This was done, however, promptly enough.  “Where are the young people?” she asked.

“They are spending the evening with my mother.”

“Is not the thing very sudden?”

Acton looked up.  “Extremely sudden.  There had been a tacit understanding; but within a day or two Clifford appears to have received some mysterious impulse to precipitate the affair.”

“The impulse,” said the Baroness, “was the charms of your very pretty sister.”

“But my sister’s charms were an old story; he had always known her.”  Acton had begun to experiment again.

Here, however, it was evident the Baroness would not help him.  “Ah, one can’t say!  Clifford is very young; but he is a nice boy.”

“He ’s a likeable sort of boy, and he will be a rich man.”  This was Acton’s last experiment.  Madame Munster turned away.

She made but a short visit and Felix took her home.  In her little drawing-room she went almost straight to the mirror over the chimney-piece, and, with a candle uplifted, stood looking into it.  “I shall not wait for your marriage,” she said to her brother.  “To-morrow my maid shall pack up.”

“My dear sister,” Felix exclaimed, “we are to be married immediately!  Mr. Brand is too uncomfortable.”

But Eugenia, turning and still holding her candle aloft, only looked about the little sitting-room at her gimcracks and curtains and cushions.  “My maid shall pack up,” she repeated.  “Bonte divine, what rubbish!  I feel like a strolling actress; these are my ‘properties.’”

“Is the play over, Eugenia?” asked Felix.

She gave him a sharp glance.  “I have spoken my part.”

“With great applause!” said her brother.

“Oh, applause—­applause!” she murmured.  And she gathered up two or three of her dispersed draperies.  She glanced at the beautiful brocade, and then, “I don’t see how I can have endured it!” she said.

“Endure it a little longer.  Come to my wedding.”

“Thank you; that ’s your affair.  My affairs are elsewhere.”