Eleanor shook her head. "You will change your mind again to-morrow," she said curtly.

Margaret flushed. "No," she replied steadily, "I will not. You may believe me when I say I shall not. You see, Eleanor, when I first wanted so much to be in your place and go to The Cedars I had no idea what was before me. I was disappointed when I found out, and so, of course, my wish was to change back into myself again; and I never thought of the effect my change of purpose would have upon you. But this time I am doing it with my eyes open."

There was a new ring in Margaret's voice, a look of resolution on her face that was strange to it, and Eleanor, glancing at her in amazement, realised that she was showing a latent strength of purpose that had perhaps for the first time in her sheltered, uneventful life been called out in her. Nevertheless she refused to believe that Margaret really meant what she said.

"But the dishonesty you spoke of just now," she said. "What about that; and your dislike to the deception we are both practising? That remains the same."

"I know," said Margaret in a low tone, a shadow crossing her face and dimming the look of courageous resolve it wore. "But that is unavoidable.

It seems to me now that it would be quite as bad, if not worse, to break faith with you."

Still Eleanor did not give way. Her conscience did not need to speak very loudly for her to hear it telling her that in accepting Margaret's offer she was doing a very wrong thing. In her heart of hearts she had known all along that their plot was inexcusable from every point of view, and that when it came to be known most of the blame would be laid at her door, not only because she was the elder and the more worldly wise of the two, but because most people would consider that she had been the one to profit most by the exchange. But she had been carried away by Margaret's urgent pleadings and persuasions and had finally suppressed her misgivings and consented to the plot. Now, however, the case was altered.

It was only out of a spirit of pure self-sacrifice that Margaret was urging her to continue to bear her name, and she knew that in yielding she would be guilty of great selfishness.

"Think of your singing lessons with Madame Martelli," said Margaret, who was quietly watching the struggle with herself to which Eleanor's changing face bore eloquent witness.

That clenched the matter. Eleanor gave in; but this time it was she who found it difficult to meet Margaret's eyes.

"Oh, Margaret," she said, "if you appeal to my ambition my better self goes under. I accept, then; but you're a brick, a perfect brick, and I feel too mean for words."

CHAPTER XI

A PRACTICAL JOKE

Three weeks had pa.s.sed since Margaret had paid her first visit to Eleanor at Windy Gap, and during those three weeks she had kept steadily to her word and was impersonating Eleanor as well as she could at The Cedars.

And as the days went by her task grew easier. She seemed to have slipped into her place as a member of the household, and though it was a very insignificant niche indeed that she filled, she did not mind that at all, for she was aware that the more she kept in the background the less chance there was of her secret being discovered. Perhaps on the whole, too, she was happier than she had been during the first three or four days. Of course, as she told herself seriously, she ought not, when once her eyes had been opened to the wrongfulness of the deceit she was practising, to have known a single happy moment, but somehow she found it difficult always to feel ashamed and contrite, especially when she was playing croquet with Edward. For in return for some lessons in French conversation she was giving him he had offered to teach her croquet, and though Margaret had been afraid that she was far too stupid to learn any game, she was making astonishing progress under his tuition, and Edward was already beginning to boast of the prowess of his pupil. And so, for the first time in her life, Margaret fell under the fascination of a game, and when she had a mallet in her hand it is to be feared that the delinquency of her conduct ceased to trouble her.

Fat, chuckling Nancy, too, who seemed to be always br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with good nature and good spirits, frequently sought her society, and Margaret found it even more impossible to brood secretly over her misdeeds in Nancy's society as when she was playing croquet. Of Maud she saw very little. Sometimes for days together the eldest daughter of the house scarcely spoke to her, vouchsafing her only the most careless and hasty of nods as morning and evening greetings. Maud intended to be neither rude nor unkind. The children's holiday governess simply did not interest her, that was all, and as for going out of her way to amuse or entertain her, Maud's blue eyes stared amazedly at her mother when one day Mrs.

Danvers ventured to suggest that perhaps Maud might take more notice of Miss Carson.

"For I really am afraid she is having a very dull time here," said Mrs.

Danvers, her tone taking on a rather apologetic note as she encountered the impatient expression on Maud's face. "I am sure I don't know what she would do if it wasn't for Nancy and Edward."

"Well, with them to knock around with, and the kids to teach when they come back, she ought not to find time hang heavy," Maud said carelessly.

"But as for asking me to take her about, why, mother, I simply couldn't.

The day isn't half long enough as it is for me to do all I want to do.

And after all, she wouldn't find it a bit amusing to come about with me.

Fancy her sticking down for hours at the club watching me playing tennis, for that is what I am doing this afternoon, for instance. Besides, she is so dreadfully slow. She bores me awfully."

"My dear," said her mother, "though you all find Miss Carson so slow just because she knows nothing about tennis, or tennis people, or cricket averages, or the difference between Rugby and a.s.sociation football, I think she is a very nice girl indeed, so gentle and so unselfish. David and Daisy just love her, and I know if I want any little thing done for me, a note written, or flowers put in water, or any little things of that sort, I'd sooner ask her to do it for me than either you or Hilary."

"Well, and so she ought to make herself useful," said Maud, turning restive at the merest hint of criticism from the mother who usually had nothing but praise for her daughters. "After all, that is what she is here for. She is paid for that, isn't she?"

"I am paying her nothing," Mrs. Danvers said.

"Well, she gets her board and lodging, anyhow, and a better time into the bargain than she would be getting grilling away in an empty house at Hampstead," Maud retorted. "And I think she ought to be jolly thankful to be here."

This conversation was taking place in the morning-room by the open French window of which Maud had stood while carrying on her share of it, and her last speech had been uttered with so much vigour that as her back was partly turned to the room she had not heard the door open. And though her mother coughed once or twice in an agonised way, it was not until she had quite finished all she had to say that Maud swung round and saw Margaret standing with a pile of letters in her hand by her mother's chair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAUD SWUNG ROUND AND SAW MARGARET STANDING WITH A PILE OF LETTERS BY HER MOTHER'S CHAIR.]

"I have finished these, Mrs. Danvers," she said quietly; "is there anything else you would like me to do?"

Margaret had certainly gained in self-possession since she had come to The Cedars. A fortnight ago if she had heard a remark of that sort about herself she would have rushed in tears from the room, but now she seemed to guess intuitively that the right thing and the kindest thing to do was to pretend not to have heard it. Certainly from her manner Maud would never have guessed that her speech had been overheard. Nevertheless, she knew that Miss Carson could not have failed to hear every word, and flushing darkly even through the sunburn of her cheeks, she fled out of the room by the window, literally without a word to say for herself. And when Mrs. Danvers attempted an apology on her daughter's behalf it was Margaret's turn to show embarra.s.sment.

"Please, please," she said earnestly, "do not think that I mind what Maud said. You are all very kind to me, and Maud is quite right. It is much nicer here than it would be in an empty house in Hampstead."

"That reminds me, my dear," Mrs. Danvers said. "Sit down here beside me, and let us have a nice cosy chat about your future. What are you going to do when you leave me at the end of the holidays? Are you going back to the school?"

"Yes--yes; I--think so," said Margaret, beginning to stammer and get red as she invariably did when Hampstead was mentioned. "At least, I--I don't know."

"Well, I may be mistaken of course--thank you, my dear, if you will just reach me my knitting, I can always talk so much better when I am knitting. Well, as I was going to say, I have an idea that you would be much happier teaching in a family than in a school. And I do wonder why I cannot persuade you to let me write to my daughter, Mrs. Lascelles, about you. I believe when she hears how much the children like you she would be only too pleased to take you out to Los Angelos for a few years. She would give you 50 a year--and your travelling expenses, of course. It is a chance, I a.s.sure you, that many girls in your place would jump at, for it is not, my dear, as if you were very highly certificated, you know.

She will have a lovely house out there, for her husband is a very rich man, and they will treat you with every kindness and consideration. Now may I write to her and say that you would like to go?"

Several times already in the course of the past few weeks had Mrs.

Danvers broached this subject to Margaret, but the latter had always. .h.i.therto been able to avoid giving her a direct answer as to why she was not willing to take the post. But what a thousand pities it was, Margaret thought, that Eleanor could not accept it. Once the wild idea had occurred to Margaret that she ought to accept it in Eleanor's name, and manage somehow to change places with her at the very last moment--on board the ship, even, perhaps; but fortunately she had seen the utter folly of that notion before it had taken firm route in her mind. She did not even know if Eleanor would have cared to go to Los Angelos had the chance been offered to her, for though she had seen Eleanor twice since the day on which she had first gone to Windy Gap, she had not been able to broach the subject to her. For on both occasions Eleanor had been so full of her own news, and their meetings had been of necessity so brief, that by the time Eleanor had poured out all she wanted to say the moment had come for them to part.

Margaret felt very much older than the girl who had left her grandfather's house three weeks ago. A great deal of experience had been pressed into those three weeks, and she had learned many things. Among them she had learned what perhaps at the time she had scarcely believed that there was, as Eleanor had said bitterly, a good deal of difference in their respective positions, and that an escapade which could not be visited very seriously on one might affect the other rather disastrously.

Margaret knew now that Mrs. Danvers, good-natured as she was, would certainly have refused to take Eleanor in her place if she, Margaret, had carried out her intention of confessing everything. But in spite of that knowledge she still clung to the hope that the post at Los Angelos, which was being so warmly pressed upon the false Eleanor Carson, might eventually be offered to the real one! And so, if only for the sake of keeping the place open to Eleanor, she felt that she could not refuse it outright. What Eleanor meant to do when the holidays were over and they had to take their own names again, Margaret did not know. As far as she could judge from their brief, stolen interviews at Windy Gap, Eleanor continued to be radiantly happy there and to be earning golden opinions from Madame Martelli, and to be absolutely untroubled by any thoughts beyond the immediate present. The fact that she could not be Margaret Anstruther for ever never seemed as much as to enter her head. She gave no thought to the future at all. And of course, Margaret reflected, if she expected to be a celebrated Prima Donna by the end of the summer holidays, that was all right, but if not, did she intend to stay on at Windy Gap indefinitely and send her, the real Margaret, back to the school in her place? If such a thing were possible, Margaret felt sure that Eleanor would despatch her there with the utmost cheerfulness, and consequently Margaret was deeply thankful that such a course was not feasible, for Eleanor could hardly hope to pa.s.s another girl off as herself in a school where she had lived for the last seven or eight years. What, then, did Eleanor mean to do?

"My dear," said Mrs. Danvers reproachfully, breaking in upon Margaret's perplexed musings, "you are not listening to a word that I am saying, and what I want to have from you is a plain answer to the question why you refuse to go to Los Angelos."

"I--I could not leave England," Margaret answered. "I--I should not be allowed to."

"But, my dear, I understood from Miss McDonald that both your parents were dead and that you are absolutely alone in the world. Who, then, has authority over you? Unless," she added, a sudden look of enlightenment coming to her face, "you are engaged to be married. Is that it?"

"Oh, no," said Margaret, "I am not engaged to any one. It is no one of that sort at all."

"Then there is some one whom you wish to consult first. Now, who is it?"

By that time Margaret's confusion would have attracted the attention of any one a degree more observant than Mrs. Danvers, but she saw nothing suspicious in it; she was only bent on persuading Margaret to change her mind. As she said, it seemed such a pity for Miss Carson to stand so obstinately in her own light, for on the face of it a pleasant post and 50 a year was better than 20 in a second-rate school.

"There is no one who I would have to consult exactly," said Margaret, seeking vainly for a way of escape out of the tight corner into which she had blundered, "only--only I could not go."

"But, my dear," repeated Mrs. Danvers, "I have it in your own words; you said just now that you would not be allowed to leave England."

"No; yes, I mean," said Margaret, whose confusion was increasing so rapidly that by that time she had very little idea what she was saying.

"I--I am sure I should be prevented. By the end of the holidays you--you may not like me any longer, and not wish me to go."

"Now what a very strange idea for you to take into your head," said Mrs.

Danvers placidly. "Isn't that a strange idea Miss Carson has taken into her head, Hilary--that by the end of the summer holidays we may not like her any more?"

For just as Margaret had entered the room unperceived by Maud a few minutes back, so Hilary had now come in unheard by Margaret, and had been standing where Maud had stood--half in and half out of the window.

"Very strange," said Hilary, sending a swift glance at Margaret's averted face; "was it meant as a prophecy?"