This light way of taking his tender congratulations did not quite please Osborne, who was in a sentimental mood, and for a minute or so he remained silent.  Then, having finished making her bow of ribbon, she turned to him, and continued, in a quick low voice, anxious to take advantage of a tete-a-tete between her mother and Molly,—­

’I think I can guess why you made me that pretty little speech just now.  But do you know you ought not to have been told?  And, moreover, things are not quite arrived at the solemnity of—­of—­well—­an engagement.  He would not have it so.  Now, I shan’t say any more; and you must not.  Pray remember you ought not to have known; it is my own secret, and I particularly wished it not to be spoken about; and I don’t like it’s being so talked about.  Oh, the leaking of water through one small hole!’

And then she plunged into the tete-a-tete of the other two, making the conversation general.  Osborne was rather discomfited at the non-success of his congratulations; he had pictured to himself the unbosoming of a love-sick girl, full of rapture, and glad of a sympathizing confidant.  He little knew Cynthia’s nature.  The more she suspected that she was called upon for a display of emotion, the less would she show; and her emotions were generally under the control of her will.  He had made an effort to come and see her; and now he leant back in his chair, weary and a little dispirited.

‘You poor dear young man,’ said Mrs. Gibson, coming up to him with her soft, soothing manner; ’how tired you look!  Do take some of that eau-de-Cologne and bathe your forehead.  This spring weather overcomes me too. ‘Primavera’ I think the Italians call it.  But it is very trying for delicate constitutions, as much from its associations as from its variableness of temperature.  It makes me sigh perpetually; but then I am so sensitive.  Dear Lady Cumnor always used to say I was like a thermometer.  You’ve heard how ill she has been?’

‘No,’ said Osborne, not very much caring either.

’Oh, yes, she is better now; but the anxiety about her has tried me so:  detained here by what are, of course, my duties, but far away from all intelligence, and not knowing what the next post might bring.’

‘Where was she then?’ asked Osborne, becoming a little more sympathetic.

‘At Spa.  Such a distance off!  Three days’ post!  Can’t you conceive the trial?  Living with her as I did for years; bound up in the family as I was.’

’But Lady Harriet said, in her last letter, that they hoped that she would be stronger than she had been for years,’ said Molly, innocently.

’Yes—­Lady Harriet—­of course—­every one who knows Lady Harriet knows that she is of too sanguine a temperament for her statements to be perfectly relied on.  Altogether—­strangers are often deluded by Lady Harriet—­she has an off—­hand manner which takes them in; but she does not mean half she says.’