"Confessions!" she said. "They will have a great air of novelty from you. What have you been about, Charlie? Forgetting your engagements?" "No. Only carrying them out too faithfully. You remember that I undertook to supply a model for your friend, Miss Lascelles?" Mrs Marchmont took the letter she had laid down again into her hand. "Yes," she answered. "And you carried out your undertaking. Has anything happened?" "Why?" he asked quickly. "Because you told me you had a confession to make, and because this note may have something to do with it. It is from Mrs Lascelles." "What does she say?" Everitt demanded, with interest. "Well, she begs me to let you know that they do not want the model again. There is something odd in that, because Kitty was so very keen for him. What is the mystery? Has the man turned out too much of a ruffian, or too little?" "Judge for yourself," he said. "I was the ruffian." "You!" she exclaimed. "You!" "The man failed me, and I couldn't think of any way of escaping your displeasure but by taking the character myself." "You went to the Lascelles' as a model!" "I did. I begin to believe now that it was a blunder." "It was a blunder," she said, gravely. "It certainly was a blunder." He looked at her. "At least," he said, eagerly, "you will understand that my motives were very simple." "Yes, I can understand; I am afraid other people may not credit them with such simplicity. It was dreadfully imprudent, Charlie! It was more what I should have expected from your friend Mr Hibbert." Then she began to laugh. "But it must have been very comic. And did they find you out?" "I don't know. I don't know that they did. But, Mary--" "Well?" "I want you to tell them, and to square things." She shook her head. "They won't be at all easy to square, as you call it. You had better leave them alone, and trust to the fates not to bring you across any of the Lascelles family again." An odd expression crossed Everitt's face. "That won't do," he said, getting up and standing with his back to the fireplace. "I want to see them again; at least, I want to see your friend." "Kitty? Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Marchmont, in blank amazement. "This is too exciting! Do you really mean it?" "I mean that I should like to see her again," repeated Everitt. "You may take that for what it's worth." "Oh, I am delighted!" she cried; "delighted! Charlie, I would do anything in the world if I thought. But there, we needn't say anything. You just want to be introduced?" "Yes; and they'd better know. I won't have that hanging over my head." "I'll manage everything. They have a garden-party on Monday; I shall propose to bring you, and I will go and see them meanwhile. One couldn't write all that about the model." Everitt left her, not ill-satisfied. He had said rather more than he had intended, but it had been necessary to enlist his cousin, and he knew she would act in the friendliest fashion.