Mrs. Challoner occupied rooms in a genteel part of the town which might be said to touch the fringe of the more fashionable quarter. She was a widow with a jointure quite inadequate for a lady of her ambition, but she had an additional source of income in her brother, who was a city merchant of considerable affluence. From time to time he paid some of Mrs. Challoner’s more pressing bills, and though he did it with a bad grace, and was consistently discouraged by his wife and daughters, he could always be relied upon to step into the breach before matters reached too serious a pass. He said, grumbling, that he did it for his little Sophy’s sake, for he could not bear to see such a monstrous pretty girl go dressed in the rags Mrs. Challoner assured him she was reduced to. His elder niece awoke no such generous feeling in his breast, but since she never exerted herself to captivate him, and always stated in her calm way that she lacked nothing, this was perhaps not surprising. Though he would naturally never admit it, he stood a little in awe of Mary Challoner. She favoured her father, and Henry Simpkins had never been able to feel at ease with his handsome brother-in-law. Charles Challoner had been reckless and graceless, and his own noble family had, declined having any intercourse with him after he had committed the crowning indescretion of marriage with Miss Clara Simpkins. He was indolent and spendthrift, and his morals shocked a decent-living merchant. But for all that he had an air, a faint hauteur of manner that set his wife’s relations at a distance, and kept them there. They might assist materially in the upkeep of his establishment, and he was not above permitting them to rescue him from the Spunging House, whenever he was unfortunate enough to fall a victim to his creditors, but a gentleman of his connections could not be expected to consort on equal terms with (as he neatly phrased it) a bundle of Cits. This easy air of assurance, and a patrician cast of countenance he bequeathed to his elder daughter. Her Uncle Henry found himself ill at ease in her presence, and wished that if his son Joshua must feel it incumbent on him to fall in love with one of his cousins, he would choose the easier and prettier Sophia.
Mrs. Challoner had only the two daughters, and since Mary’s sixteenth birthday her main object in life had been to marry them both suitably as soon as possible. The signal success once achieved by a certain Irish widow put ideas into her head which her brother thought absurd, but though she admitted that Mary, in spite of her grand education, could scarcely hope to achieve more than a respectable alliance, she could not find that either Maria or Elizabeth Gunning in their prime had outshone her own Sophia. It was more than twenty years since the Gunning sisters had taken the town by storm, and Mrs. Challoner could not remember ever to have set eyes on either, but she knew several reliable persons who had, and they all assured her that Sophia far transcended the famous beauties. If Mrs. Gunning, who hadn’t a penny, and was dreadfully Irish as well, could catch an earl and a duke in her matrimonial net, there seemed to be very little reason why Mrs. Challoner, with a respectable jointure, and no common Irish accent, should not do quite as well. Or if not quite, at least half — for she was not besotted about her daughters, and had made up her mind a long time ago that nothing great could be hoped for Mary.
It was not that the girl was ill-favoured. She had a fine pair of grey eyes, and her profile with its delightfully straight nose and short upper lip was quite lovely. But placed beside Sophia she was nothing beyond the common. What chance had chestnut curls when compared to a riot of bright gold ringlets? What chance had cool grey eyes when the most limpid blue ones peeped between preposterously long eyelashes?
She had, moreover, grave disadvantages. Those fine eyes of hers had a disconcertingly direct gaze, and very often twinkled in a manner disturbing to male egotism. She had common-sense too, and what man wanted the plainly matter-of-fact, when he could enjoy instead Sophia’s delicious folly? Worst of all she had been educated at a very select seminary — Mrs. Challoner was sometimes afraid that she was almost a Bluestocking.
The education had been provided by the girl’s paternal relatives, and at one time Mrs. Challoner had expected wonders to come of it. But Mary seemed to have acquired nothing from it but a quantity of useless knowledge, and a certain elegance of deportment. The select seminary had housed young ladies of the highest rank, but Mary’s common-sense fell short of making fast-friends with any of them, so that Mrs. Challoner’s visions of entering the Polite World through her daughter’s friendships all vanished, and she was left to wish that she had never applied to the Challoners for help at all. Yet at the time of Charles Challoner’s early demise, it had seemed to her to be an excellent thing to do. Her brother had said that she could hope for nothing from such high and mighty folk, and it certainly seemed now as though she had got worse than nothing. While evincing no desire to set eyes on his late son’s spouse, General Sir Giles Challoner had expressed his willingness to provide for the education of his eldest granddaughter. Mrs. Challoner perforce had accepted this half-loaf, with the secret belief that it would lead to better things. It never had. On several occasions Mary had been bidden on a visit to Buckinghamshire, but no suggestion either of adopting her, or of inviting her mamma and sister to share the visit, had ever been made.
It was bitterly disappointing, but Mrs. Challoner was a just woman, and she had no doubt that the frustration of her ambitions was largely due to Mary herself. For all her wonderful learning, the girl had not the smallest notion of bettering her position. With every opportunity (if only she had known how to be ingratiating) of insinuating herself into the affections of her benefactors, she had apparently made no attempt to be indispensable to them, so that here she was, actually twenty years of age, still sharing the lodging of her mother and sister, and with no better prospect in view than marriage with her cousin Joshua.
Joshua, a stout and affluent young man, was not an earl, but then Mary was not Sophia, and Mrs. Challoner would have been quite satisfied with this match for her elder daughter. Inexplicably Joshua had no eyes for Sophia. He was obstinately and somewhat fiercely in love with Mary, and the mischief was that the stupid girl would have none of him.
“I don’t know what you look for, I’m sure,” Mrs. Challoner said, pardonably incensed. “If you think you will marry a titled gentlemen, let me tell you, Mary, that you have no notion how to go about the business.”
Whereupon Mary had looked up from her stitchery, and said with a humorous inflexion in her calm voice: “Well, mamma, I have plenty of opportunity for learning, haven’t I?”
“If all that fine education of yours taught you was to be odiously sarcastic about your sister, miss, you wasted your time!” said her mother sharply.
Mary bent her head over her work again. “Indeed I think so,” she said.
There was nothing much to be made of this. Mrs. Challoner suspected her daughter of a hidden, and probably unpalatable meaning, but could not resist saying: “And though you may sneer at Sophia now, I wonder how you will look when she is my lady.”
Mary re-threaded her needle. “I think I should look much surprised, mamma,” she replied somewhat drily. Then as Mrs. Challoner began to bridle, she put her work aside, and said in her quiet way: “Madam, surely in your heart you know that Lord Vidal does not dream of marriage?”
“I will tell you what it is, miss!” said her mother with a heightened colour, “you are jealous of your sister’s beauty, and all the suitors she has! Not dream of marriage? Why, what do you know of the matter, pray? Does he take you so deep into his confidence?”
“I do not think,” said Mary, “that Lord Vidal is aware of my existence.”
“I’m sure that’s no wonder,” declared Mrs. Challoner. “You’ve no notion how to make yourself agreeable to a gentleman. But that’s no reason why you should be so prodigious unpleasant about poor Sophia’s chances. If ever I saw a man fall head over ears in love, that one is Lord Vidal. Lord, he’s for ever kicking his heels upon our doorstep, and as for the posies and the trinkets he brings — ”
“They had better be given back to him,” said her daughter prosaically. “I tell you that man means no good towards Sophia. Good God, mamma, don’t you know his reputation?”
Mrs. Challoner failed to meet that straight gaze. “Fie, and pray what should you, a chit from the schoolroom, know of a gentleman’s reputation?” she said virtuously. “If he has been something of a rake, that will all be changed when he weds my pretty Sophia.”
“It seems fairly safe to say so,” agreed Mary, picking up her work again. “You choose to be hoodwinked, ma’am, but if you will believe he means honestly by my sister, will you not at least consider how far apart are their fortunes?”
“As to that,” replied Mrs. Challoner, preening herself, “I am sure the Challoners are good enough for anyone. Not that it signifies in the least, for we all know how the Gunnings, who were nobody, married into the nobility.”
“They did us a great disservice thereby,” sighed Mary.
More she would not say, deeming it useless, but it was with deep misgiving that she regarded her sister when that damsel danced in, fresh from an expedition with her bosom friends, the Matchams.
Sophia was just eighteen, and it would have been hard to have found a fault in her appearance. She had the biggest of cornflower-blue eyes, the daintiest of little noses, the softest, most adorable mouth in the world. Her curls, which her mamma nightly brushed for her, were of a gold that had nothing to do with flaxen, and her complexion was of that rose-leaf order that seems too perfect to be natural. She had a frippery brain, but she could dance very prettily, and knew just how to drive a man to desperation, so that it really did not matter in the least that she was amazingly ignorant, and found the mere writing of a letter the most arduous task.
Just now she was bubbling over with plans for the immediate future, and she broke in impatiently on her mother’s lamentations over a torn muslin gown. “Oh, it doesn’t signify, mamma, you will be able to mend it in a trice. But only fancy what a delightful scheme there is afoot! My Lord Vidal is to give a supper-party at Vauxhall, and we are all to go. There is to be dancing and fireworks, and Vidal promises we shall go by water, which makes Eliza Matcham so cross because I am to be in Vidal’s boat, and he never asked her at all.”
“Who is ‘all,’ Sophia?” inquired her sister.
“Oh, the Matchams, and their cousin Peggy Delaine, and I dare say some others,” Sophia replied airily. “Can you conceive of anything more charming, mamma? But one thing is sure! I must have a new gown for it. I would die rather than wear the blue lustring again, if you can’t contrive a new one, I vow I shan’t go to the party at all, which would be a shame.”
Mrs. Challoner quite saw the force of all this, and was at once prolific of plans for the acquiring of a suitable gown, and exclamatory over the pleasure in store for her daughter. Into their ecstasies Mary’s matter-of-fact voice broke once again. “You’ll hardly be seen at Vauxhall in Vidal’s and Miss Delaine’s company, Sophia, I should hope.”
“And why not?” cried Sophia, beginning to pout. “Of course I knew you would try to spoil it for me, you cross thing! I dare say you would prefer I should stop at home.”
“Infinitely,” said Mary, unmoved by the hint of tears in her sister’s eyes. She looked straightly across at her mother. “Will you think for a moment, ma’am? Do you see nothing amiss in allowing your daughter to go out in public with a play-actress and the most notorious rake in town?”
Mrs. Challoner said to be sure it was a pity Miss Delaine was to be of the party, but was immediately cheered by the reflection that Sophia would be accompanied by the two Misses Matcham.
Mary got up, and it was to be seen that she was of medium height and very neat figure. There was a sparkle in her eyes, and her voice took on a certain crispness. “Very well, ma’am, if that comforts you. But there’s not a man alive would take my sister for the innocent girl she is who sees her in such company.”
Sophia swept a curtsey. “La, and thank you, my dear! But perhaps I am not so innocent as you think. I know very well what I am about, let me tell you.”
Mary looked at her for a moment. “Don’t go, Sophy!”
Sophia tittered. “Lord, how serious you are! Have you any more advice, I wonder?”
Mary’s hand dropped to her side again. “Certainly, child,” she said. “Marry that nice boy who worships you.”
Mrs. Challoner gave a small shriek of dismay. “Good God, you must be mad! Marry Dick Burnley? And she with her chances! I’ve a mind to box your ears, you stupid, provoking girl.”
“Well, ma’am, and what are those fine chances? If you push her much further down the road she is travelling now, you’ll have her Vidal’s light o’ love. A rare end, that, to your ambition.”
“Oh, you wicked creature!” gasped Sophia. “As if I would!”
“Why, child, what hope would you have once Vidal got you in his clutches?” Mary said gently. “Oh, I allow he’s hot for you! Who would not be? But it’s not marriage he means by you, and it will be something quite otherwise if he sees you in such loose company as you keep.” She stayed for a moment, awaiting any answer they might choose to give, but Mrs. Challoner for once had nothing to say, while Sophia sought refuge in a few sparkling easy tears. Having nothing further to say, Mary gathered up her embroidery and went out.
She might as well have held her peace. Uncle Henry having been coaxed into providing the necessary guineas to buy his pretty niece a new gown, Sophia went off to her party in high spirits, entirely, and quite rightly, satisfied with her appearance in pink tiffany, trimmed with rich blonde in scallops. Cousin Joshua, getting wind of it, came to condemn such behaviour, but got little satisfaction from Mary. She heard him out in a silence that seemed more abstracted than attentive and this so piqued him that he was unwise enough to ask her whether she were listening.
She brought her gaze back from the window, and surveyed him. “I beg your pardon, cousin?”
He was annoyed, and showed it. “I believe you’ve not heard one word!” he said.
“I was thinking,” said Mary thoughtfully, “that puce does not become you, Joshua.”
“Puce?” stammered Mr. Simpkins. “Become me? What — Why — ?”
“It is maybe your complexion that’s too high for it,” mused Miss Challoner.
Mr. Simpkins said with dignity: “I was speaking of Sophia, Mary.”
“I’m sure she would agree with me,” replied the lady maddeningly.
“She’s too easy, cousin. She don’t know the path she treads,” Joshua said, trying to bring the conversation back to its original topic. “She’s very different from you, you know.”
A slow smile curled Miss Challoner’s lips. “I do, of course, but it’s hardly kind in you to tell me so,” she said.
“In my eyes,” declared Joshua, “you are the prettier.”
Miss Challoner seemed to consider this. “Yes?” she said interestedly. “But then, you chose puce.” She shook her head, and it was apparent she set no store by the compliment.
When Sophia returned from her party it was long past midnight. She shared a bedchamber with her sister, and found Mary awake, ready to hear an account of the night’s doings. While she undressed she prattled on of this personage and that, of the toilettes she had seen, of the supper she had eaten, of the secret walk she had stolen, and the kiss she had received, of how Eliza had come upon them, and been near sick with jealousy, and much more to the same tune. “And I’ll tell you what, Mary,” she ended jubilantly, “I shall be my Lady Vidal before the year’s out, you mark my words.” She curtsied to her own reflection in the mirror. “‘Your ladyship!’ Don’t you think I shall make a vastly pretty marchioness, sister? And everyone knows the Duke is getting very old, and I dare say he can’t last very long now, and then I shall be your grace. If you don’t wed my cousin, Mary, maybe I shall find you a husband.”
“What, have I a place in all these schemes?” inquired Mary.
“To be sure, you need not fear I shall forget you,” Sophia promised.
Mary regarded her curiously for a moment. “Sophia, what’s in your mind?” she asked suddenly. “You’re not fool enough to think Vidal means marriage.”
Sophia began to plait her hair for the night. “He’ll mean it before the end. Mamma will see to that.”
“Oh?” Mary sat up in bed, and cupped her chin in her hands. “How?”
Sophia laughed. “You think no one has brain but yourself, don’t you? But you’ll see I shan’t manage so ill. Of course Vidal don’t mean marriage! Lord, I’m not so simple that I don’t know the reputation he bears. What if I let him run off with me?” She looked over her shoulder. “What then, do you suppose?”
Mary blinked. “I’m too mealy-mouthed to hazard a guess, my love.”
“Don’t fear for my virtue!” Sophia laughed. “Vidal may think I’m easy, but he’ll find he’ll get nothing from me without marriage. What do you think of that?”
Mary shook her head. “We should quarrel if I told you.”
“And if he won’t wed me,” Sophia continued, “then mamma will have something to say, I promise you.”
“Nothing is more certain than that,” agreed Miss Challoner.
“Oh, not to Vidal!” Sophia said. “To the Duke himself! And I think Vidal will be glad to marry me to prevent the scandal. For there is my uncle as well as mamma, you know, and he would create a rare to-do. Vidal will have to marry me.”
Miss Challoner drew a deep breath, and lay back on her pillows. “My dear, I’d no notion you were so romantic,” she drawled.
“I am, I think,” nodded Sophia innocently. “I have always thought I should like to elope.”
Miss Challoner continued to observe her. “Do you care for him?” she asked. “Do you care at all?”
“Oh, I like him very well, though to be sure, I think Mr. Fletcher dresses better, and Harry Marshall has prettier manners. But Vidal’s a marquis, you see.” She took a last complacent look at her own image, and jumped into bed. “I’ve given you something to think of now, haven’t I?”
“I rather believe you have,” concurred Miss Challoner.
It was certainly long before she fell asleep. Beside her Sophia lay dreaming of the honours in store for her, but Mary lay staring into the darkness, and seeing before her mind’s eye, a black-browed face, with a haughty thin-lipped mouth, and eyes that seemed to her fancy to look indifferently through her.
“You’re a fool, my girl,” Mary told herself. “Why should he look at you?”
She could find no reason at all, being singularly free from conceit. She could find very little reason either why she should want the gentleman to look at her. She took herself to task over it. What, was she to turn into a languishing miss? A bread-and-butter schoolgirl, sighing for a handsome face? God help the woman Vidal’s fancy lighted on! Ay, that was a better tune. Like father, like son. The old Duke’s affairs had been the talk of the town. He had a pretty-sounding name once, though he might be as virtuous as you please to-day. Satan, was it? Some such thing. They called the son Devil’s Cub, and not without reason, if the half of the tales told were true. Lord! Sophia was no match for the man. He would break her like a china doll. And how to prevent it?
Again there seemed to be no answer. The plan the chit had in mind would have been laughable had it not been nauseating. To be sure Vidal deserved to get paid in his own coin, but that — no, that was nasty work, even if it succeeded. And what a plan it was! Faith, it seemed mamma was so foolish as Sophia. What would the noble family of Alastair care for one more scandal added to their list? The plague was, mamma and Sophia would never be brought to realize that they would come off the worst from that encounter. Uncle Henry? Miss Challoner grimaced in the darkness. From Uncle Henry to Aunt Bella was no great step, and from Aunt Bella to the world a shorter one still. Miss Challoner had no desire to publish Sophia’s indiscretions abroad. She began to nibble one finger-tip, pondering her problem, and so, at last, fell asleep.
The morrow brought his lordship before her again, this time no picture of the mind. Nothing would do but that Sophia must go walking in Kensington Gardens with her sister to meet Eliza Matcham. When Mary perceived the Marquis approaching them down one of the paths, she understood the reason for this unwonted desire for exercise.
As usual, he was richly, if somewhat negligently dressed. Miss Challoner, incurably neat, wondered that a carelessly tied cravat and unpowdered hair could so well become a man. Not a doubt but that the Marquis had an air.
Sophia was blushing and peeping through her eyelashes. His lordship possessed himself of her hand, kissed it, and placed it on his arm.
“Oh, my lord!” Sophia murmured, casting down her eyes.
His smile was indulgent. “Well, child, what?” he said.
“I did not think to meet you,” Sophia explained, for her sister’s benefit.
The Marquis pinched her chin. “You’ve a short memory, my love.”
Miss Challoner with difficulty suppressed a chuckle. My lord disdained the art of dissimulation, did he? Faith, one could not help liking the creature.
“Indeed, I don’t know what you mean,” Sophia pouted. “We came expressly to meet Eliza Matcham and her brother. I wonder where they can be got to?”
“Confess you came to meet me!” the Marquis said. “What, was I really forgotten?”
There was a toss of the head for this. “La, do you suppose I think of you all day long, sir?”
“Egad, I hoped I had a place in your memory.”
Miss Challoner broke in on them. “I think I have just seen Miss Matcham cross the end of this walk,” she remarked.
His lordship glanced down at her impatiently, but Sophia said at once: “Oh, where? I would not miss her for the world!”
Miss Matcham, with her brother James, was soon overtaken, and Miss Challoner at once perceived that their mission was to engage her in talk while the Marquis and Sophia lost themselves. This friendly office was frustrated by the exasperating behaviour to their quarry, who refused to be separated from her sister.
Since neither the Marquis nor Sophia put themselves to the trouble of including her in their conversation, and Miss Matcham was wholly engaged in keeping the hem of her muslin gown from getting wet on the grass, she had ample opportunity to observe her sister’s lover. A very little time was enough to convince her that love, as she understood it, was felt by neither. Her sister, she thought, would bore his lordship in a week, and as she listened to him, and watched him, she found herself wondering again how Sophia could imagine that he felt any more than a passing fancy for her. Certainly he wanted the chit; he was of the type that would go to any lengths to get what he wanted, and, unless she was much mistaken, Miss Challoner was sure that once the prize was won, he would cease to desire it. Then woe betide Sophia with her artless ideas of shaming him into marriage. Why, thought Mary, one could never shame my Lord Vidal, because he did not care what was said of him, and had already given the world to understand, beyond possibility of mistake, that he would do exactly as he pleased on every occasion. Scandal! Mary almost laughed aloud. Lord, he would carry off anything with that insolent high-bred manner of his, while as for being afraid of public opinion, he’d raise those black brows of his in faint surprise at such a notion.
These reflections occupied her mind till the expedition broke up. From something the Marquis said to Sophia in a low voice at parting she gathered that a future assignation had been made, but Sophia did not tell her where it was to be. Her smiles vanished with the Marquis, and on the way home she complained ceaselessly of her sister’s lack of tact in remaining at her side all the morning.
As for the Marquis, finding himself with time on his hands, he strolled round to Half Moon Street to visit the most congenial of his relatives.
Although it was past noon, he found this worthy still attired in a dressing-gown, and without his wig. The remains of breakfast stood upon the table, but my Lord Rupert Alastair seemed to have finished this repast, and was smoking a long pipe, and reading his letters. He looked up as the door opened, and made a grab at his wig, which lay conveniently on the sofa beside him, but when he saw his nephew he relaxed again.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Here, what the devil do you make of this?” He tossed over the sheet of paper he had been perusing, and tore open another of his letters.
Vidal laid down his hat and cane and came to the fire, running his eye over the note he held. He grinned. “Ain’t it plain enough, O my uncle? Mr. Tremlowe would be gratified by the payment of his bill. Who the devil’s Mr. Tremlowe?”
“Damned barber,” growled Lord Rupert. “What’s he say I owe him?”
The Marquis read out a startling total.
“Pack of lies,” said Lord Rupert. “Never saw so much money all at once in all my life. Damme, what have I had from him? Nothing at all! A couple of wigs (a Crutch and a She-dragon, and I never wore the Crutch) and maybe a bottle of Pomatum. Blister it, does the fellow think I’m going to pay him?”
The question was purely rhetorical, but the Marquis said: “How long has he known you, Rupert?”
“Lord, all my life, curse his impudence!”
“Then I don’t suppose he does,” said Vidal calmly.
Lord Rupert pointed the stem of his pipe at Mr. Tremlowe’s missive. “I’ll tell you what it is, my boy. The fellow’s dunning me. Put it in the fire.”
The Marquis obeyed without the slightest hesitation. Lord Rupert was scanning another sheet of paper. “Here’s another,” he exclaimed. It went the way of the first. “Never see anything but bills!” he said. “What’s your post bring you, Vidal?”
“Love letters,” promptly replied his lordship.
“Young dog,” chuckled his uncle. He disposed of the rest of his correspondence, and suddenly became solemn. “I’d something to say to you. Now what the plague was it?” He shook his head. “Gone clean out of my head. Which reminds me, my boy, I’ve a piece of advice to give you. I was dining with Ponsonby last night, and he said you was bound to him for Friday next.”
“Oh, God, am I?” said the Marquis wearily.
“Don’t touch the brandy!” his uncle adjured him. “The burgundy’s well enough, and you can swallow the port, but the brandy’s devilish bad.”
“Given you a head, Rupert?” inquired his lordship solicitously.
“Worst I’ve had in years,” declared Lord Rupert. He stretched his long legs out before him, and lay looking up somewhat owlishly at his nephew. It seemed to dawn on him that the hour was an unusually early one for the Marquis to be abroad. “What brings you here?” he asked suspiciously. “If you want to borrow money, Vidal, I tell you plainly, I’m cleaned out. Lost a milleleva last night. Never seen anything like the run of the luck. Bank’s won for weeks. Burn it, I believe I’ll give up pharaoh and take to whist.”
Vidal leaned his shoulders against the mantelpiece, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “I never pursue forlorn hopes, uncle,” he said sweetly. “I’ve come for the pleasure of seeing you. Can you doubt it?”
His lordship shot out a hand. “Now don’t do that, my boy!” he said. “Damme, when you start talking like Avon I’m off! If you’ve not come to borrow money — ”
“Boot’s on the other leg,” interrupted the Marquis.
Lord Rupert’s jaw dropped. “Ecod, was it you lent me five hundred pounds last month? When did I say I’d pay?”
“Judgment Day, belike,” said his undutiful nephew.
Lord Rupert, shook his head. “Won’t be before, if the luck don’t turn soon,” he agreed gloomily. “If you stand in need of it, my boy, I might ask Avon for a trifle.”
“Lord, I could ask him myself, couldn’t I?” the Marquis said.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you, Vidal, that’s a thing I don’t do till the tipstaffs are after me,” confessed Rupert. “I’m not saying Avon’s mean, but he’s devilish unpleasant over these little affairs.”
The Marquis glanced down at him with a glint in his eyes. “Sir, I am constrained to remind you that his grace has the honour to be my sire.”
“Don’t do it,” roared his uncle. “Look’ee, Vidal, if you’re going to look down your nose, and turn into the living spit of Justin, you’ve one friend the less. I’m done with you.”
“My God, could I survive?” mocked the Marquis. Lord Rupert started to get up, but was thrust back again. “Easy now,” said his nephew. “I’ve done.”
Rupert relaxed again. “Y’know, you’ll have to watch it, Dominic,” he said severely. “One in the family’s too much already. Avon’s got a damned nasty way with him, and if you fall into it you’ll find yourself with a whole pack of enemies.” He stopped and scratched his head. “Not but what you’ve got them already, ha’n’t you?”
Vidal shrugged. “I dare say,” he replied indifferently. “I don’t lose sleep over them.”
“Cool fish, ain’t you?” said Rupert, eyeing him. “Ever let anything trouble you?”
The Marquis yawned. “I’ve never found anything worth troubling over.”
“H’m! Not even women?”
The thin lips curled. “Least of all women.”
Lord Rupert looked solemn. “Won’t do, y’know. Must care about something, Dominic.”
“Sermon, uncle?”
“Advice, my boy. Damn it, there’s something wrong with you, so there is! Never see you but what you’re after some wench or other, and the devil’s in it you don’t care for one of ’em — ” He broke off and clapped a hand to his brow. “That’s got it!” he exclaimed. “Put me in mind of what I had to say to you!”
“Oh?” A faint interest sounded in Vidal’s voice. “Have you found a charmer, Rupert? At your age, too!”
“Fiend seize it! D’you think I’m in my dotage!” said his lordship indignantly. “But that’s not it. This is serious, Dominic. Where’s the burgundy? Take a drop, my boy; it won’t do you a mite of harm.” He picked up the bottle, and poured out two glasses. “Ay, it’s serious this time, I warn you — What do you think of the wine? Not so bad, eh? Forget where I got it.”
“It’s good,” said the Marquis positively, and poured out two more glasses. “You had it from my cellar.”
“Did I so? I’ll say this for you, Vidal, you’ve inherited your father’s palate. It’s the best thing I know of either of you.”
The Marquis bowed. “We thank you. What’s your serious warning?”
“I’m just about to tell you, aren’t I? Don’t keep breaking in, my boy; it’s a devilish bad habit.” He drained his glass, and set it down. “That’s cleared my head a trifle. It’s that yellow-headed chit, Dominic. Filly you had on your arm at Vauxhall Gardens t’other night. Can’t remember her name.”
“Well?” said his lordship.
Rupert reached out a long arm for the bottle. “Avon’s got wind of her.”
“Well?”
Rupert turned his head to look at him. “Don’t keep on saying ‘Well,’ burn you!” he said testily. “I’m telling you Avon’s heard things, and he ain’t pleased.”
“Do you expect me to break out in a sweat?” asked Vidal. “Of course my father knows. It’s a habit with him.”
“And a damned bad habit, too,” said Rupert feelingly. “You know your own business best, or, at any rate, you think you do, but if you take my advice, you’ll go easy with — what in hell’s the girl’s name?”
“You can pass over her name.”
“No, I can’t,” contradicted Rupert. “I can’t go on calling her girl, filly, chit, yaller-head; it throws me out.”
“Just as you please,” yawned Vidal. “You’ll forget it in five minutes. Sophia.”
“That’s it,” nodded my lord. “Never could stand the name since I got entangled with a widow called Sophia. D’you know, boy, that woman well-nigh married me?”
“That wasn’t Sophia,” objected Vidal. “That was Maria Hiscock.”
“No, no, that’s a different one,” said Rupert impatiently. “Sophia was years before your time. And she devilish nearly had me. You be warned, Dominic.”
“You are kindness itself,” answered Vidal politely, “I can only repeat what I seem to have said already several times; I do not at this present contemplate marriage.”
“But ain’t this Sophia a thought different from the others?” asked his lordship curiously. “Daughter of a cit? Lay you odds you stir up trouble there.”
“Not I. If it were the sister now — !” Vidal gave a short laugh. “That’s one of those enemies of mine you spoke of, or I’m much mistaken.”
“Didn’t see the sister, did I? The mother will do what she can to see you tied up in wedlock. ’Pon my soul, if I ever set eyes on a worse harpy!”
“And the sister would send me to the devil,” Vidal said. “I don’t please Miss Prunes and Prisms.”
Lord Rupert cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t you, begad? And does she please you?”
“Good God, no! We don’t deal together. She’d spoil sport if she could.” He showed his teeth in a rather saturnine smile. “Well, if she chooses to cross swords with me, she’ll maybe learn something in the encounter.” He picked up his hat and cane, and strolled to the door. “I’ll leave you, beloved. You’re becoming damned moral, you know.” He went out and the door shut behind him before Lord Rupert, astonished and indignant at the charge, could think of a suitable retort.