Cynthia again showed signs of confusion. Mr. Benoliel wore his air of omniscience. She sat down upon a chair. "What do you mean, Mr. Benoliel?" "This," said he. "I have noticed that the young ladies who keep their engagements secret are not, as a rule, very much in love with the men they are engaged to. They leave themselves a loop-hole of escape." Cynthia's cheeks flamed. Certainly she had intended to spare Harry Rames and herself some uncomfortable weeks. But would she have minded those weeks had she cared for him? The question came swiftly, and as swiftly was answered. Had she cared for him she would have wanted to wear him like a ribbon on her breast for all the world to see. She realized it with a pang. She would have run quickly forward to meet the gossip and do battle. But she had not run forward. It was true that she had left herself a pathway of retreat, and rather by instinct than from any deliberate plan. Her wariness had prompted her. Once more she had wanted to be safe. But nothing of this was she going to acknowledge to Mr. Benoliel. "I think you are extraordinarily horrid," she said again with a cold dignity, and hoped that her stateliness would crush her inquisitor. "When do you propose to marry, then?" he asked. "Just before Whitsuntide. The House will rise for ten days, I hear, at the least. We shall announce the marriage just before the House rises;" and that indeed was the plan upon which she had agreed only that morning with Harry Rames. "Then there is no hurry," said Mr. Benoliel. "Perhaps you and Captain Rames will pay me a visit in the country before Whitsuntide comes." He spoke as though he accepted the situation, and turned to other subjects, fearing to confirm Cynthia in obstinacy by any show of opposition. "Certainly," she said; "we shall be pleased to come;" and a month later she and Harry Rames came one Friday afternoon to Culver.