HERO MIGHT HAVE ENJOYED THE EVENING spent at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, but it had not been one of unmixed pleasure for her escort, while for one other person it had been an evening of almost unleavened annoyance. Miss Milborne, seeing the most ardent of her admirers enter the rooms with Hero on his arm, had suffered something in the nature of a shock. Never before had she seen George in attendance on any other lady than herself! When he came to Almack’s it was to form one of her court; and when she did not dance with him he had a gratifying habit of leaning against the wall and watching her, instead of soliciting some other damsel to dance with him. Now, on the heels of the most obdurate quarrel they had had, here he was, looking perfectly cheerful, actually laughing at something Hero had said to him, his handsome head bent a little to catch her words. Hero, too, was in very good looks; in fact, Miss Milborne had not known that her little friend could appear to such advantage. She could never, of course, aspire to such beauty as belonged to the Incomparable, but Miss Milborne was no fool, and she was obliged to own that there was something particularly taking in the bride’s smile and mischievous twinkle. Watching George, she came to the reluctant conclusion that he was fully sensible of his partner’s charm. He had given his adored Isabella nothing more than a common bow upon catching sight of her, and it was plain that he meant to devote his evening to Hero. Miss Milborne could think of a dozen reasons to account for his gallanting Hero to the ball, but none of them satisfied her; nor could the distinguishing attention paid to her by her ducal admirer quite restore her spirits. She was even a trifle pettish with Severn, a circumstance which later drew down upon her the slightly tart reproaches of her Mama, who had no notion of her daughter’s playing fast and loose with such a dazzling suitor.
The truth was that Miss Milborne was in the uncomfortable situation of a young lady who had had her head turned as much by the ambition of her parent as by the admiration which had been hers ever since she had first appeared in Polite circles. She had been educated with a view to making a brilliant match, and until Lord Wrotham had swept stormily into her orbit no other idea than that of obliging her Mama had so much as crossed her head. But Lord Wrotham’s was a disturbing presence, and it was not long before the Beauty’s docile and well-ordered ambition was in direct conflict with the scarcely recognized promptings of her heart. For no one could seriously consider that Wrotham would provide any girl with a brilliant match. His birth was certainly unexceptionable, but it was common knowledge that his estates were grossly encumbered; and instead of being, like his ducal rival, a dignified young man of notable steadiness of character, he was wild to a fault. He had quite as many libertine tendencies as Miss Milborne had complained of in Sherry; he was a gamester; he mixed with low persons such as prize-fighters and jockeys; and his hot temper led his anxious friends to prophesy that one day he would kill his man, and be obliged to fly the country. Miss Milborne knew that the very thought of allying herself to him was an absurdity, and she made many praiseworthy attempts to put him out of her mind. After all, he was not the only one of her suitors to attract her. She had been by no means impervious to Sherry’s careless charm, for instance; and she found one Sir Barnabas Crawley very much to her taste, not to mention the elusive Sir Montagu Revesby. In her more honest moments, she was bound to own to herself that nothing but his high degree appealed to her in the Duke of Severn; but when George had been more than usually tiresome she could convince herself that she would be very comfortable if wedded to a nobleman who would certainly never give her a moment’s anxiety, and who would treat her with unfailing, if slightly tedious, civility and consideration. He was, in addition, extremely wealthy, but since she was herself a considerable heiress she was able to banish such a mercenary consideration as this from her mind. Nothing, in fact, was farther from Miss Milborne’s admirably trained mind than to marry to disoblige her family, as the saying was, yet when she saw Wrotham enter the ballroom at Almack’s with Hero on his arm, a pang of something so like jealousy shot through her that she was shocked at her own meanness of spirit, and felt all her pleasure in the evening to have been destroyed. Nor was she able to think well of Hero for purloining George in this shameless way, and — as though that were not injury enough! — contriving to keep him in apparently sunny spirits all the evening.
The reflection that he was the second of her suitors to be filched from her by Hero could not but cross her mind. It was all very well to say that Sherry had married poor little Hero in a fit of pique: possibly he had done so, but anyone who believed that Sherry was eating his heart out for his first love would have had to have had less than common sense or a greater degree of conceit than Miss Milborne. The dreadful suspicion that the passion her admirers declared themselves to feel for her was nothing more than an evanescent emotion, soon recovered from, could not be stifled, and made Miss Milborne wretched indeed. She waited for George to come across the room to her side, which he would surely do as soon as another man relieved him of the charge of Hero. Hero was led on to the floor by Marmaduke Fakenham to dance the waltz: George strolled away to exchange greetings with a group of his friends. Miss Milborne, too mortified to remember that she had refused to receive him when he had called to pay her a morning visit, could only suppose that his passion for her had burnt itself out, and immediately began to flirt with the dashing Sir Barnabas. Later in the evening she found herself partaking of lemonade in the refreshment saloon beside Hero, and she was excessively affectionate to Hero, even, with the utmost nobility of character, telling her that her dress was the prettiest in the room, and the new way she had of doing her hair quite ravishing.
“I observe,” said Mrs Milborne on the way home, “that our little friend has lost no time in acquiring a cicisbeo! Well! I wish her joy of young Wrotham! He seemed to me to be quite épris in that direction. It is all of a piece: I dare say if I have said once that he is incurably volatile I have said it a dozen times. But I did not quite like to see you dancing twice with Sir Barnabas Crawley, my love. I am sure a most elegant creature, but not a man of substance. To flirt a little — but always in a ladylike way, remember! — can do no harm, but I fancy Severn did not quite like to see Crawley make you the object of such persistent gallantry. I just mention the matter, my dear, and no more, for I am sure I need have no fear for your good sense.”
“None, Mama,” said Miss Milborne in a colourless tone.
She was seated in her Mama’s barouche next day outside a shop in Bond Street, waiting for Mrs Milborne to accomplish the purchase of a bottle of Distilled Water of Pineapples (to discourage wrinkles), when Sherry came sauntering down the street, looking rather rakish, with his curly-brimmed beaver set at an angle on his fair head, and the drab Benjamin he wore (for the autumn morning was chilly), hanging negligently open to allow the interested a glimpse of a tightly fitting coat of superfine, a very sporting waistcoat, and a natty pair of yellow buckskins. He stopped beside the barouche, and stayed chatting to Miss Milborne with his usual good humour, and a complete absence of the sort of constraint that might have been expected in a young gentleman finding himself vis-a-vis the lady who had so lately rejected his proffered suit. He had been at Jackson’s Saloon, attempting like every other young blood of the Fancy to pop in a hit over the ex-champion’s guard, and was now on his way to White’s, where he had an assignation with Mr Ringwood. He paid Miss Milborne an extravagant compliment or two, but as he followed these up by saying that now he came to think of it he had not seen her very lately, she was in no danger of taking his gallantry seriously.
“You were not at Almack’s last night, or you might have seen me,” she remarked.
His brow darkened, for although he bore his wife no grudge for the events of the previous evening, he still felt unaccountably aggrieved whenever he thought of George’s share in them. “No,” he said shortly.
Miss Milborne, quick to catch the note of dissatisfaction in his voice, would have been less than human had she forborne to probe further. She cast down her eyes to the lavender kid gloves she wore and said, smoothing them over her wrists: “I was glad to see Lady Sheringham, however, and in such spirits.”
The Viscount’s blue gaze became fixed on her face. “Oh!” he said. “In spirits, was she? Ha!”
“She was much admired,” said Miss Milborne calmly. “Indeed, I wish you had been there, for she looked delightfully!”
“I’ll take precious good care I’m there the next time she goes to that dam — dashed place!” promised his lordship.
“I am sure Lord Wrotham took excellent care of her.”
“Well, I’ll thank him to take care of someone else’s wife!” said his lordship irascibly.
Miss Milborne began to feel alarmed. She abandoned her formal manners and asked directly: “Sherry, you are not jealous of George, are you?”
“Who said anything about being jealous of George?” retorted the Viscount. “I suppose I need not care to have him walking off with my wife, without so much as a by your leave, or — However, that’s neither here nor there! But what the devil he wants with my Kitten when he’s been making a cake of himself over you for the past six months is more than I can fathom!”
Miss Milborne passed over this unflattering description of Lord Wrotham’s devotion, and said: “I am persuaded you have not the least cause to feel uneasy. There was nothing in his manner last night to warrant any jealousy on your part, upon my honour!”
“There had better not be, by Jove!” said his lordship, his eye kindling.
There was no opportunity for further discussion. A widow’s lozenge-coach had drawn up alongside the Milbornes’ barouche, and the Dowager Lady Sheringham was already leaning out of the window to bestow a greeting upon her dear Isabella. She acknowledged her son with a sigh and a sad smile, but appeared to derive some comfort from the spectacle of him conversing with Miss Milborne. Her manner, if not her actual words, held so strong a flavour of the might-have-been that Miss Milborne felt her colour rising, and the Viscount, recalling his engagements, sheered off in a hurry.
“Ah, my love!” murmured Lady Sheringham. “If only things had been otherwise! I live in dread of his bitterly regretting his rash marriage. When I saw him beside your carriage, I could not suppress the thought that — ”
“I am persuaded, ma’am, that you need harbour no fears for his happiness!” Miss Milborne said quickly, conscious of the ears on the box of her carriage.
“I wish I might believe you are right,” sighed the dowager, who had a sublime disregard for servants. “I own I was dismayed to learn from Mrs Burrell that my daughter-in-law, as I suppose I must call her, elected to appear at Almack’s last night with that dreadful young Wrotham as her cavalier. But I knew how it would be from the outset! I believe he is for ever in her company.”
Miss Milborne was spared the necessity of answering by the somewhat acid and overloud comments of a hackney carriage driver whose progress was being impeded by the lozenge-coach. Lady Sheringham was obliged to desire her coachman to drive on, leaving her young friend to digest at her leisure her sinister remarks.
Lord Wrotham, meanwhile, by a superhuman effort of will, continued to hold aloof from the Beauty, not, indeed, as his well-wishers hoped, from a resolve to be done with her, but in the hope that this change of treatment might induce her to look more kindly upon his suit. One of his married sisters, who desired nothing so much as to see him married to an heiress, had given him a great deal of worldly advice, and however poor an opinion he might hold of his sisters’ advice in general, he thought that Augusta very likely knew what she was talking about when the subject under discussion was the capriciousness of the female sex. So far, events seemed to have borne out Augusta’s dictum: Wrotham had not failed to perceive the effect his escorting Hero to Almack’s had had upon Miss Milborne. It had gone to his heart to respond only with a bow to the most welcoming smile he had received from the Beauty for many weeks, but he had done it; and if it gave him a good deal of pain to see her subsequent passages with Sir Barnabas Crawley, at least he was shrewd enough to suspect that these were designed to make him jealous. He determined to make no sign for several days, and spent a happy hour in devising a romantic gesture which must melt a heart already thawing towards him. Miss Milborne had told him once that violets were her favourite flowers. The fact that she had chosen to present him with this information at a moment when he had laid an enormous bouquet of roses at her feet was a little daunting, but he had treasured up the knowledge against a future occasion, and he now perceived how to put it to excellent account. It was not perhaps the easiest task in the world to obtain violets at this season of the year, but to a forceful young man in love all things were possible. Miss Milborne should receive a posy of violets in an elegant holder upon the evening of Lady Fakenham’s ball. She would surely know who must have sent them, but just in case there should be any mistake he would enclose his card with the flowers, with a brief message written upon it. He was unable to decide between Wear these for my sake, and If you wear these tonight I shall know what to think, and he ended by carrying this problem to Hero.
Hero naturally thought the whole notion very pretty, and could not conceive how any female could resist wearing flowers which had cost so much time and trouble to procure. But as she had a very practical mind she felt herself obliged to point out to George that Isabella could hardly wear a posy of violets in a filigree holder. George saw the force of this argument, but when he had written out another card, with the words Carry these for my sake, he could not like the alteration.
“Well, I know what I should write if I were you, George,” said Hero. “I should just write With my love.”
“ With my homage!” corrected George reverently.
“Yes, if you choose, but for my part, I think it would be more touching to put love.”
“How if I wrote, Carry these and you carry my heart?” said George, attacked by sudden inspiration.
Hero gave a gasp, and said in a shaken tone: “I don’t at all know why it should be so, dear George, but — but I think that would make me want to laugh, if I were Isabella.”
“It would?” he exclaimed, shocked.
She nodded.
“Well, I do not understand how it could possibly do so. However, I dare say you may be right. I should like to mention my heart, though. Would it make you laugh if I wrote, Hold these tonight, my heart is in them — or with them, or perhaps goes with them?”
“Yes, it would,” replied Hero frankly.
“I should not like to run such a risk,” he said, looking very much put out. “I think I will write Wear these for my sake, after all. Dash it, she will know what I mean!”
Having settled this to his moderate satisfaction, he soon took his leave of Hero, and went off in tolerably good spirits. He met Sherry on the doorstep, but he was too intent on pursuing his quest for violets to do more than exchange a brief greeting with him. Sherry regarded his retreating figure with dark suspicion, and went straight upstairs to the drawing-room to demand of his wife if George lived in Half Moon Street?
She said innocently: “I thought he lived in Ryder Street? Has he removed from there, Sherry? He said nothing of it to me, and he was with me not five minutes ago.”
“I’m well aware of that!” said his lordship tartly. “And I should like to know what he was doing here! I suppose you will say he called to see me!”
“Oh no, I don’t think he wanted to see you, Sherry! He came to ask my advice about something. You won’t mention it, will you? He is going to send a bouquet of violets to Isabella for the Fakenhams’ ball. He says they are her favourite flowers.”
“Oh!” said his lordship. “Well, I don’t see what he wants with your advice!”
“He did want my advice, but I think I ought not to tell you what it was about, because I dare say he would not like it known,” confided Hero.
“It seems to me,” said Sherry severely, “that Bella Milborne ain’t the only female George has an eye to!”
“Oh no, Sherry!” Hero said earnestly. “Indeed, you are quite wrong! Why, you cannot mean that you suspect George of having an eye to me? Oh, Sherry, how nonsensical! I assure you, he does nothing but talk of Isabella!”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Sherry, looking her over critically. “The fact of the matter is you seem to have grown so devilish pretty since I married you that there’s no knowing what will happen next.”
She blushed rosily. “Have I, Sherry? Have I really? I expect it is just the new way I have of dressing my hair, and all my grand gowns.”
“Yes, very likely,” he agreed. “I must say, I never thought you above the ordinary myself, but if you go on like this the lord only knows where it will end!”
“But, Sherry, you do not mind my growing to be pretty, do you?”
“Oh, I don’t mind it!” replied his lordship. “The thing is, I didn’t bargain for it, that’s all, and if you are to have fellows like George for ever haunting the house, I can see it will be a dashed nuisance. And now I come to think of it, George ain’t the only one! There’s Gil! Hardest case I ever met in my life, and what must he do but take you out driving to Salt Hill, just as though he were in the habit of driving females, which he ain’t. Yes, and who was that curst rum touch I found with you last week?”
“Mr Kilby, do you mean, Sherry?”
“I dare say. Not that it signifies, for I fancy he won’t come here to make sheep’s eyes at you again!”
She gave a little giggle. “I must say, I think you were very uncivil and disobliging to him, Sherry. I don’t know what he can have thought!”
“Oh, don’t you?” retorted Sherry grimly. “Well, he knew dashed well what to think, let me tell you!” He returned unexpectedly to the original bone of contention. “But that’s neither here nor there. Whoever heard of a fellow’s wanting the advice of a chit like you, I should like to know? Rather too brown, Kitten! In fact, a dashed sight too brown!”
“But indeed he did, Sherry! The case is that he has great hopes that Isabella may relent towards him, and he wished to know my opinion of a — well, a little billet that he means to send her, with the flowers for Lady Fakenham’s ball. But you must not mention the matter, for indeed I think he would not wish me to have spoken of it!”
As he really knew very well that he had not the least cause to regard Lord Wrotham with suspicion, Sherry consented to be satisfied with this explanation, and the matter was allowed to drop.
An interview with his man of business, a few days later, provided his lordship with other, and more serious, affairs for thought. Mr Stoke felt it to be his duty to bring certain disagreeable facts to his lordship’s notice. Since this interview followed on a more than ordinarily Black Monday at Tattersall’s, the Viscount escorted his wife to the Fakenhams’ ball in a mood of considerable dissatisfaction. His friend, Revesby, in whom he had confided, had done his best to raise his spirits by asserting his conviction that the luck would shortly turn, and had even introduced him to the newest gaming hell, which was located in Pickering Place, and conducted on such discreet lines that the Viscount would not have been surprised to have been asked to give a password before being admitted by the individual who conversed with him through an iron grille in the door. He had played macao into the small hours of the morning, but with indifferent success; and although Sir Montagu was of the opinion that initial losses were to be regarded as auspicious, it was an undeniable fact that his lordship was not in his usual sunny spirits when he arrived at the Fakenham mansion in Cavendish Square.
“Scorched, dear old boy?” asked Mr Fakenham, who had also visited Tattersall’s on settling day. Sherry grimaced at him.
“You’ll come about,” said Ferdy encouragingly. “Thought I was aground myself, until Brock gave me the office to back Sweeter When Clothed last Wednesday.”
“I laid my blunt on First Time of Asking,” said his lordship gloomily.
Ferdy shook his head. “Mistake,” he said. “Ought to have listened to Brock. Very knowing one, Brock. Come and have a glass!”
This advice seemed good to Sherry, and he went off with his cousin to try whether champagne punch would recruit his spirits. They would have taken Lord Wrotham along with them, but his lordship, whose expressive dark eyes were glowing with mingled anticipation and excitement, declined to leave the ballroom. But the evening was not destined to come up to Wrotham’s expectations. Miss Milborne, receiving the bouquet of violets by the hand of her Mama’s black page, was torn by conflicting emotions. She could not but be touched by Wrotham’s having taken such pains to obtain for her flowers which he believed to be her favourites. She recalled, with a twinge of her conscience, having bestowed this mendacious piece of information on him, and her more compassionate feelings prompted her to carry his offering to the ball, instead of the yellow roses left at the door earlier in the day with his Grace of Severn’s compliments. But several circumstances militated against this impulse. In the first place, Wrotham had been inspired at the eleventh hour to send the flowers with the second of his messages in place of the first. Wear these, and I shall know what to think, ran the inscription on his lordship’s card. This was going too fast for Miss Milborne, who felt that until she herself knew what to think it would be better for his lordship to remain in his present uninformed state. She was ready to indulge herself and her numerous suitors with a little harmless flirtation, but she was a good-hearted girl, and unless she was prepared to accept Wrotham’s hand in marriage she did not feel that she should carry to the ball flowers which came to her with so pointed a message attached to them. As she thought the matter over, a slight indignation mingled with her compassion for one so stricken. Really, it was the outside of enough, she thought, that George should neglect her for nearly a fortnight, and then toss a posy of violets to her with an ultimatum attached to it! There was yet another consideration — and not the least of them — that led to George’s violets being rejected. Miss Milborne, whose striking beauty could well support the trying colour, was wearing a new gown of pale puce satin and net to the ball, and with this George’s violets could not be said to agree. Miss Milborne laid the violets aside, and pinned a spray of Severn’s roses to her corsage, determining, as she did so, to soften the blow to George by treating him with more than ordinary kindness.
Alas for such good intentions! No sooner did George, on the watch for her arrival, clap eyes on those yellow roses than he turned pale, and abruptly left the ballroom. In his disordered state he would undoubtedly have rushed from the house had he not encountered his hostess in the ante-chamber. Lady Fakenham, who had known him from his cradle, asked him severely where he was going, and without giving him time to reply bore him inexorably back into the ballroom, and presented him to a young lady who gratefully accepted his reluctant hand for the quadrille which was forming. By the time he had performed his part in this, all the impropriety of fleeing from the house had been recollected, and he retired to prop the wall by the door, his arms folded, and his stormy gaze following Miss Milborne’s progress down a country dance. Since Severn was her partner, he was unable to support this spectacle for long, and soon sought refuge in a small chamber adjoining the ballroom. This had been designed to accommodate any persons who preferred a quiet rubber of whist to the more fatiguing exercise of dancing, but George’s aspect was so forbidding that a timid-looking man, who peeped into the room, withdrew in haste to inform his companions that he rather thought they had better find another room for their projected game.
Hero, who had not failed to notice Miss Milborne’s roses, and George’s haggard appearance, took the earliest opportunity that offered of following him to his retreat. Her tender heart ached for the pain she knew him to be suffering. It was a pain she was not quite a stranger to, and her own susceptibility made it seem the more imperative to offer such comfort as she could to George.
She found him sitting moodily on a small sofa, a glass of brandy in his hand. He looked up, with a challenging expression in his eyes, but when he saw who had come in his brow cleared, and he rose, setting down his glass, and managing to conjure up the travesty of a smile.
Hero clasped his hand between both hers, saying: “Dear George, do not heed it! Indeed, she could not have carried violets with that gown!”
“She is wearing Severn’s roses,” he replied.
“Oh, no! You cannot know that!”
“Mrs Milborne told Lady Cowper so within my hearing.”
Hero looked dismayed, but rallied. “It can only be because they were more suited to that gown. Sit down, George! I am persuaded you refine too much upon it.”
He allowed himself to be pulled down on to the sofa beside her, but gave a groan. “I told her that if she wore my violets I should know what to think. I have had my answer, and may as well go and blow my brains out without more ado.”
“Oh, do not say so! You know, George, I think you should not have sent that message. Perhaps she may not have quite liked it. Have you spoken with her?”
He shook his head. “I could not trust myself. Besides, if I came within reach of that curst fellow, Severn, I should very likely find a means of picking a quarrel with him.”
“No, no, don’t do that! Should you like it if I were to try if I can discover Isabella’s feelings upon this occasion?”
“Thank you! I have observed her to be in excellent spirits!” he said bitterly. “That one so fair should be so heartless!”
“Indeed, I am sure she is no such thing! She has a little reserve, perhaps, and she does not confide in one, but I feel quite certain Severn has not engaged her affections.”
He was silent for a moment, pleating and repleating the handkerchief he held, his attention apparently absorbed in this foolish task. His lip quivered; he said in a hard voice: “She will marry him for his possessions, and his rank. It is plain enough.”
“Oh, no! You are unjust, George! She has more heart than you believe.”
“Once I believed — ” He stopped, and dropped his head in his hands, with a groan. “It don’t signify! I beg your pardon! I should not be boring on about my affairs. But you cannot know the anguish of having one’s love scorned, indeed, I dare say hardly regarded!”
“Dear George, do not say so!” Hero besought him, putting up her hand to smooth his unruly locks. “I know — oh, I know! But do not allow yourself to think there is no hope of her affections animating towards you! It cannot be but that if one truly loves — ” Her voice became suspended; she was obliged to wipe a tear from her cheek.
He put his arm round her, in a brotherly way, and gave her a slight hug. “Yes, yes, where there is a heart to be won, of course you are right, Kitten! But in my case — ! There, do not let us dwell upon it any longer! I am the greatest brute alive: I have made you cry, and I would not do so for the world!”
She gave a shaky laugh. “Only for your sake, dear George! Indeed, I am the happiest creature imaginable, in — in general!”
He turned her face up. “Are you? I hope you may be, for you deserve to be.”
She smiled mistily, and because it seemed a natural thing to do under the circumstances, he bent his head, and kissed her.
There was nothing at all passionate in this embrace, and Hero had no hesitation in receiving it in the spirit in which it was clearly meant. Unfortunately, Sherry chose this precise moment to walk into the room with Ferdy and Mr Ringwood. Having imbibed enough champagne punch to restore him to his usual buoyancy, he had recollected his duty, and was looking for his wife, to do her the honour of dancing with her. He was indebted to Mr Ringwood for the knowledge of her whereabouts, but it is doubtful if either Mr Ringwood or Ferdy would have accompanied him on his quest had they know in what a situation he was to find his bride. He arrived in excellent time to see Lord Wrotham, one hand under Hero’s chin, plant his kiss on her pretty lips. One moment he stood transfixed, the next he uttered a crashing oath, and took a hasty stride forward. Mr Ringwood, recovering from his own stupefaction, closed with him, just as George, flushing vividly, sprang to his feet.
“ Sherry!” Mr Ringwood said warningly. “For God’s sake, dear boy, remember where you are! You can’t choke George to death here!”
George folded his arms, and curled his lip sardonically, looking extremely noble and romantic, and awaiting events with a sparkle in his eye. Hero, faintly surprised by her careless husband’s extraordinary behaviour, said without the least trace of guilt, or discomposure: “Why, Sherry, what is the matter? Were you looking for me?”
“Yes, by God, I was!” replied Sherry, wrenching free from Mr Ringwood’s grasp. “Damn you; Gil, let go!”
Ferdy, who had been standing with his mouth open, staring, suddenly rose superbly to the occasion, and offered his arm to Hero with a graceful bow. “Let me escort you back to the ballroom!” he said.
“Yes, but — Sherry, you must not mind George’s kissing me!” said Hero, looking from one to the other in a little dismay. “Indeed, there was not the least harm in it, was there, George?”
“Dear Kitten,” promptly replied George, bowing with even more grace than Ferdy, “there was much pleasure!”
Horrified at such provocative behaviour, Ferdy exchanged one startled glance with Mr Ringwood, and bore Hero out of the room.
“Of course there wasn’t any harm in it!” said Mr Ringwood. “All the same, you oughtn’t to kiss Sherry’s wife, George, and as for you, Sherry, if you hadn’t drunk so much champagne punch you’d have more sense than to kick up a dust over — dash it, you know what I mean! She’s as innocent as a newborn lamb!”
“ She!” the Viscount ejaculated. He ground his teeth in a very alarming manner, and rolled a fiery eye at Wrotham. “I don’t need you to tell me my wife’s innocent, I thank you, Gil! But as for that — that rake, that wolf in sheep’s clothing, that — that commoner — ”
“No, dash it, Sherry, you can’t call George a commoner!” protested Mr Ringwood. “All a mistake! George wouldn’t — I wish to God you will stop standing there looking like a hero, George, and beg Sherry’s pardon!”
“Never,” said Wrotham, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve with a flourish of his handkerchief, “in my life, have I begged any man’s pardon!”
“Nothing in that, George!” said Ferdy, who had just come back into the room. “Never know what you may come to! Why, look at me! Always swore I’d never bet on a horse with three white stockings, but I did it, and look what came of it! Won in a canter! All goes to show!”
The Viscount ignored this helpful intervention, and, heedless of an anguished plea from Mr Ringwood, cast to the winds the guiding principle which had carried him scatheless through several years of intimacy with Lord Wrotham. “Name your friends, my lord!” he said fiercely.
“Sherry!” almost wailed Mr Fakenham. “Consider, dear boy! Not yourself! Can’t be in your senses! Put it down to the champagne! Pay no heed to him, George!”
Lord Wrotham, however, replied promptly: “With the greatest pleasure on earth! Gil, will you serve me?”
“You can’t have Gil!” exclaimed the Viscount hotly. “I’m going to have him myself!”
“Oh, no, you ain’t!” retorted George, abandoning his heroics. “You can have Ferdy.”
“I shall name both Ferdy and Gil,” said the Viscount loftily.
“Well, you won’t, because I’ve bespoke Gil already.”
“Dash it, you must have other friends besides Gil!” said Sherry.
“I have, but if you haven’t enough sense to keep this affair between the four of us, I have!” said George.
“Something in that, Sherry, dear old boy,” said Ferdy wisely. “Won’t do to spread it about George has been kissing your wife. If you must call him out — but, mind you, I’m not in favour of it, because you know what he is, and ten to one the whole thing is a hum! — I’ll act for you, and between us Gil and I will fix it up all right and tight. But mind this, George! If you choose pistols you’re not the man I thought you!”
“Well, I shall,” said George instantly.
“Let him choose what he likes: it makes no odds to me!” said Sherry grandly. “I shall send Mr Fakenham to wait on your second, my lord, and let me tell you that I consider it a curst mean trick of you to name Gil before I had a chance to do so myself!”