Cotillion

Chapter XI

In pursuance of her aims, Miss Charing allowed herself, with real heroism, to be inveigled by Lady Dolphinton into visiting the Dolphinton house in Grosvenor Place, a locality which her ladyship described disparagingly as quite out of the way, and this in so scornful a voice that Kitty quaked to think of what she might have said of so unmodish a quarter as Keppel Street.

There had been a time when Lady Dolphinton had not spared to state her opinion of encroaching orphans, or her conviction that this particular orphan was a sly little hussy. It seemed that that was now to be forgotten. She was all amiability when Kitty presented herself in Grosvenor Place; and, since she could be agreeable enough when she chose, soon had the girl at her ease. She had the tact not to let Dolphinton appear, and the wit not to mention Mr. Westruther; and if she tacitly assumed that Kitty had accepted Mr. Standen’s offer as a means of establishing herself creditably, she did so with enough sympathy to make it hard for Kitty to be offended. The folly of the world in venerating the higher ranks of nobility was lightly touched upon; and also the advantages attached to a pretty young woman’s allying herself with a complaisant man. “But that I should not say to you, my dear! Freddy—dear creature!—is a Standen! You will discover soon enough how straitlaced a family!”

Kitty could barely repress a smile, but by the time she had driven out with Dolphinton five times, and had twice accompanied him and his mother to the theatre, Mr. Standen surprised her by delivering himself of a protest. He said that she was making a cake of herself.

Kitty refuted the accusation with some heat. Mr. Standen temporized. “Dashed well making a cake of me!” he said.

“Absurd!”

“Well, it ain’t absurd. Here’s half the town knowing you’re engaged to me, and wondering if you’re going to tip me the double. Mind, I wouldn’t say a word if it weren’t Dolph! Coming it a bit too strong, Kit, to prefer a fellow like that to me!”

“But, Freddy, we agreed that only your family should be told we were engaged! Surely you cannot have spread the news!”

“I should rather think I haven’t! Now, for the lord’s sake, Kit, don’t be missish! You don’t suppose we could tell rn’mother and Meg without its leaking out! Besides, Jasper knows too: no use denying it when he’d asked Meg already. Sisters!” said Freddy, in a voice of loathing. He added, after a moment’s reflection: “That cousin of yours knows, too.”

“CamiUe? No, indeed, he does not! I have not said a word to him about it, I promise you, Freddy!”

“Told him myself,” said Freddy.

She fixed her eyes on his face. “But why!”

“Thought it would be a good thing to do,” replied Freddy vaguely.

“I can’t conceive why you should have done so!”

“Oh, well! Cousin of yours!” said Freddy, his attention on his quizzing-glass, which he was polishing with his handkerchief.

“To be sure, yes! I do not object to his knowing, if he will not spread it about, for I have a particular kindness for him. He is a delightful man, don’t you think, Freddy?”

“Very pleasant fellow,” agreed Freddy.

“Meg says his manners have a truly Gallic polish. She is in transports over him! There is just that sportive playfulness, you know, which Englishmen, in general, have not. And a most superior understanding!”

“Shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said Freddy. “In fact, I’m dashed sure he has!”

She said, a little shyly: “You can’t conceive how happy it makes me to have so respectable a relation! It is not quite comfortable, you know, to have no one of one’s own family!”

“No, I daresay it ain’t,” said Freddy, his ready sympathy stirred. “Not but what you might have the better part of my relations, and welcome! However, I see what you mean, Kit. Thing is—no wish to interfere, but no use thinking you’re up to snuff yet, my dear girl, because you ain’t! Won’t do for you to encourage the Chevalier to dangle after you. Don’t want to be one of the on-dits of town!”

“Oh, no, indeed I don’t!” she replied, laughing. “But you quite mistake the matter, Freddy! Camille’s behaviour is unexceptionable! I daresay you may be thinking of Meg’s having invited him to go with us to the Argyll Rooms, but I assure you that was quite an extraordinary happening! I could see you did not like it above half, but remember! we are first cousins, and had then but just met again after so many years! It was very natural that he should call rather frequently to see me, at the outset. I don’t think I have met him, save in company, since that evening.”

Freddy, who had taken his own simple measures to discourage the Chevalier’s visits to Berkeley Square, looked faintly gratified. It had never before fallen to his lot to steer an inexperienced damsel past the shoals of her first London season, and it was not a task for which he felt himself to be fitted; but an intimate knowledge of his elder sister had not filled him with confidence in her discretion. He had a hazy idea that having brought Kitty to town it behoved him to keep an eye on her. He had taught her the steps of the quadrille; he had done considerable violence to his feelings by escorting both her and Meg to a masked ball at the Pantheon, so that she might, in this large and extremely mixed assembly, learn to dance creditably in public; he had requested his mother to procure a voucher for her, admitting her to Almack’s, and had forbidden her straitly to accept any invitation to waltz there; he had dissuaded her from buying a jockey-bonnet of lilac silk, much admired by Meg; and he had taken strong exception to a pair of bright red Morocco slippers, saying in a resigned tone that it seemed to him that he would be obliged to accompany her the next time she went shopping. “And don’t keep on telling me that they’re Wellington slippers, because if that’s what they said in the shop they were bamboozling you!” he said, with some severity. “Dash it, the Duke’s a devilish well’dressed man, and he wouldn’t make such a figure of himself!”

These were small matters, and on all questions of taste and fashion Mr. Standeri was well qualified to advise. Miss Charing’s charming French cousin was a more serious problem, and one which considerably exercised his mind.

It was Mr. Storiehouse who was responsible for arousing certain suspicions in his breast. Mr. Stonehouse had lately attended a rout-party at the French Embassy, and could not recall that he had seen the Chevalier at this select gathering. Those who most deplored Mr. Standen’s lack of scholarship would not have called in question his worldly knowledge. He knew that the scion of a noble French house should have been present upon this occasion. There might be several reasons to account for his absence; but Mr. Standen remembered that he had not liked the Chevalier’s waistcoat, and he asked Mr. Westruther where he had met him.

“Now, where did I first meet him?” pondered Jack, his mouth grave, and his eyes alight. “Was it at Wooler’s, or was it in Bennett Street?”

Freddy, although he occasionally played hazard at Watier’s, was not a gamester, but he perfectly understood the significance of his cousin’s answer. Mr. Westruther had named two of London’s gaming-hells. With strong indignation, he demanded: “Good God, Jack, is the fellow an ivory-turner?”

Mr. Westruther laughed. “A very skilful one, Freddy!”

“A Greek?”

Mr. Westruther seemed surprised. “No, a Frenchman, surely?”

But Freddy was in no mood for such trifling. “That card will win no trick! Come, now! A Captain Sharp?”

“My dear Freddy, I have not the least reason to suppose it I Let us rather say, a first-rate player!”

Mr. Standen’s amiable countenance hardened. After staring fixedly at his cousin for a moment, he said with unusual dryness: “Playing a deep game, ain’t you, coz?”

“Why, what can you mean?” said Jack, raising his brows.

“Not sure,” said Mr. Standen cautiously. “Don’t know why you introduced the fellow to Kit.”

“You must be a trifle disguised,” said Mr. Westruther, regarding him with concern. “You have forgotten that Kitty was desirous of meeting her French connections. Isn’t she pleased with him? I was so sure she must be! A personable and a charming creature—you don’t agree?”

“Yes, I do,” Freddy replied. “Very pleasant fellow. Thing is, I’ve a notion there’s something havey-cavey about him, and I don’t like it.”

Mr. Westruther’s broad shoulders shook. “He offends your sense of the respectable, coz? Alas! Now, I find him so amusing! But I am not, of course, one of the stiff Standens.”

“No, and you ain’t engaged to Kit!” retorted Freddy, nettled.

“Very true. Are you?” said Jack sweetly.

“Seems to me,” said Freddy, recovering after a moment from the effect of this undoubted doubler, “that it’s you who are disguised!”

He thought it prudent to say no more to his cousin, but to pursue his own investigations. These led him in due course to seek counsel of his father, whom he met one day in St. James’s Street, and who exhibited great surprise at seeing him, saying that he had supposed him to have gone out of town again. But this shaft went wide. Freddy eyed his satirical parent in mild bewilderment, and said reasonably; “Can’t have thought that, sir! Dash it, met you at Meg’s two nights ago!”

Lord Legerwood sighed. “You have your own armour, have you not, Frederick? Of course, I should have known better!”

“Offended you, sir?” asked Freddy intelligently.

“Not at all. How came such an idea as that into your head?”

“Notice more than you think,” said Freddy, with simple pride. “Never call me Frederick except when I’ve vexed you!”

“Almost you encourage me to look forward to a brilliant career for you!” said his lordship, impressed.

“Shouldn’t think so at all,” said Freddy decidedly. “Wouldn’t suit me. Besides we don’t need two clever coves in the family. Mean to leave that sort of thing to Charlie. You going anywhere, sir?”

“Merely to White’s.”

“Come with you,” said Freddy. “Been thinking lately I’d like a word with you.”

“Surely not!” countered Lord Legerwood gently. “I do not live in the Antipodes!”

Freddy puzzled over this, and said after a moment: “Dashed if I see what that has to do with it, sir! You roasting me? I wish you won’t, for I ain’t in funning humour. Children going on well? Daresay you might not have noticed it, but I haven’t been in Mount Street this age. Never seem to have any time to do anything but look after Kit! If it ain’t seeing to it that Meg don’t persuade her into buying a shocking bonnet, it’s driving with her all over London and showing her a lot of tombs and broken-down statues you wouldn’t think anyone would want to look at, let alone pay to look at!”

Fascinated, his father said: “Is that what you have been doing?”

“I should rather think it is! Yes, and that’s put me in mind of another thing I wanted to say to you! This British Museum they talk so much about! You know what, sir? It’s a dashed take-in! Ought to do something about it. Why, if Kit hadn’t happened to have a deuced good book with her, we should have been bit, like a couple of green ‘uns!”

“My dear Freddy,” said Lord Legerwood, tucking a hand in his arm, “come into the club, and tell me about it!”

“Well, I will,” Freddy replied. “Though that ain’t what I chiefly want to say to you. Find myself in a bit of a fix—at least, shouldn’t wonder at it if I do find myself in one. Had a notion I might do worse than consult you.”

“You might—much worse!” said his lordship. “But first I must and will hear about the British Museum!”

He then led his son into the club, found a quiet corner in the morning-room, and bade him unburden his soul. He listened with rapt appreciation to Freddy’s account of his ordeal, expressing himself so properly that Freddy was disappointed to find that he did not feel that it lay within his province to expose the several abuses discovered by his heir. When he further disclosed, apologetically, that the question of the acquisition by the nation of the Elgin Marbles was to come up before both Houses that very session, Freddy was shocked and incredulous, and for several minutes forgot the real purpose of this interview. It was not until he had been soothed by a glass of very dry sherry that he remembered it, and then he said, without the smallest preamble: “You know the Chevalier d’Evron, sir?”

“I have not that pleasure,” responded Lord Legerwood.

“Thought as much,” nodded Freddy. “It don’t prove anything, of course, because he’s a young man, and I daresay you might not know him. Ever hear of the family?”

“No.”

“Smoky,” said Freddy gloomily.

Lord Legerwood presently interrupted his meditations. “Who is this gentleman, Freddy?”

“Cousin of Kit’s. She likes him. Mended a doll for her once, or some such stuff. Claud chopped its head off. Sort of thing he would do, come to think of it.”

“Am I to infer that you don’t share Kitty’s liking for the Chevalier?”

“Wouldn’t say that,” replied Freddy, rubbing his nose. “Very pleasant fellow. But you know how it is: can’t be on the town without learning to know a flat from a leg!”

“I am happy to hear you say so. Tell me more of this— leg?”

“No, no, he ain’t a leg! At least, I don’t know that he is. Shouldn’t think it’s as bad as that. Jack’s too downy to play cards with a leg. But he ain’t a flat either. Daresay you might not have noticed him, but he was at Meg’s party t’other evening.”

“Are you talking of a handsome young exquisite in a coat of pronounced cut, and an over-large tie-pin?”

“That’s the fellow,” said Freddy. “Good air, good address, talks of his uncle the Marquis. But they don’t seem to know him at the Embassy.”

“Disquieting,” agreed his lordship. “One must bear in mind, however, the late disturbed times in France. Possibly one of the new nobility?”

“That’s what Jasper says, but it don’t make it any better. Seems to me that fellow Bonaparte ennobled a lot of devilish queer fish. Thing is, this Camille of Kit’s looked to me as though he meant to dangle after her. Told him we was engaged. Told him the terms of this Will Uncle Matthew means to make. Then he stopped haunting the place. Dangling after the Yalding fright instead.”

“In fact, an adventurer! I imagine Annerwick will take good care that his daughter doesn’t marry to disoblige him. Isn’t there a sister living with Lady Maria, as dragon?”

“Yes, but she’s a poor dab of a female. The on-dit is that Lady Maria means to have the Chevalier. Wouldn’t surprise, me at all: handsome fellow, very popular with the ladies. No use saying it ain’t my affair. Seems to me it might be. What I mean is, if Annerwick took fright, very likely to set a lot of dashed awkward enquiries afoot. If the fellow’s an impostor, disagreeable situation for Kit. Besides, she don’t like not having relations. Told me so. Said it made her comfortable to have a respectable cousin. Ought to do something about it.”

Lord Legerwood, who had been listening to him with much more interest than he was wont to accord him, said: “I expect you ought, Freddy, but precisely what you should do I confess I don’t immediately perceive.”

Freddy looked surprised. “Don’t see any difficulty about that, sir. If he’s a loose-fish, nothing for it but to get rid of him.”

Lord Legerwood’s eyes widened a little. “I trust you are not proposing to fight a duel, Freddy?”

“Lord, no! Cork-brained thing to do! Pack him off to France again: that’s the dandy!”

“An excellent scheme—if you can bring it about.”

“Daresay I shall think of a way,” said Freddy. He observed a curious expression on his father’s countenance, and said with slight concern: “Anything amiss, sir?”

“No—oh, no!” replied Lord Legerwood, recovering himself. “I almost believe that you will think of a way, for I perceive that you have depths hitherto unsuspected by me, my dear boy. Tell me, if you please, if I am correct in assuming that my part in this is to discover for you, if I can, who and what is your Chevalier?”

“That’s it,” said Freddy, gratified by such ready understanding. “Very much obliged to you if you would, sir.”

“I will do my poor best,” bowed his lordship. “Meanwhile, permit me to congratulate you upon the change you have wrought in Kitty’s appearance! I collect that yours has been the guiding hand: alas, I knew when I saw her the other evening that my poor Meg could have had little to say in the choice of her apparel!”

Freddy looked pleased. “Elegant little thing, ain’t she?” His brow clouded. “Shouldn’t have worn those topazes, though. Wouldn’t let me give her a set of garnets. Pity!”

Lord Legerwood, although noting this peculiar reluctance on Miss Charing’s part to receive gifts from her betrothed, refrained from comment. He merely said, polishing his eyeglass: “Oblige me, Freddy, by telling me if Jack Westruther is often to be found in Berkeley Square?”

Freddy’s brow darkened. “Too dashed often, for my raste. No need for you to trouble yourself, though. Keeping my eye on Meg!”

Lord Legerwood, sustaining yet another shock, said faintly: “You are?”

“To be sure I am. What’s more, got my own notion of what’s in the wind.” He nodded portentously, but added: “Don’t mean to say anything about that: not my affair! Trouble is—beginning to think he’s too damned loose in the haft!”

“I have thought that any time these past seven years,” said Lord Legerwood.

“You have?” said Freddy, regarding him with affectionate pride. “Always say you’re the downiest man I know, sir! Up to every rig and row in town!”

“Freddy, you unman me!” said his father, profoundly moved. “No one, I believe, has yet called me a slow-top, but I own I am happy to learn that you are—er—keeping an eye on your sister.”

“Yes, but no need to fear there’ll be any brats coming through a side-door,” said Freddy bluntly. “For one thing, can’t, with Meg increasing; for another—Jack’s got his eye on a devilish prime article. Don’t think he would, either: dash it, not such a rum touch as that!”

With this assurance Lord Legerwood had to be content, for his son’s confidences were at an end. Freddy saw no reason to inform his parent that he had been thunderstruck to discover that Miss Charing had, by means unknown to him, become acquainted with the damsel whom he had. no hesitation in designating a prime article. He had already viewed with disapprobation her friendship with an illfavoured female of obviously plebeian origin; his feelings when he called in Berkeley Square and found his affianced bride entertaining Miss Broughty held him spellbound upon the threshold, his jaw dropping, and his eyes starting from his head. When Miss Broughty presently took her leave, he nerved himself to expostulate with Kitty, representing to her that to be striking up an acquaintanceship with the daughter of a lady whom he did not scruple to call an Abbess, if ever he saw one, could in no way add to her consequence. “It won’t do, Kit! Take it from me!”

To his intense discomfiture he came under the beam of Miss Charing’s wide-eyed, enquiring gaze. “What does an Abbess signify, Freddy?” she asked. He was thrown into disorder, and replied hastily: “Never mind that! Wouldn’t understand if I told you! Thing is, the woman’s putting that girl up to the highest bidder. Oughtn’t to say such things to you, but there it is!”

“I know she is,” responded Kitty calmly. “She is quite the most odious woman imaginable! I am so sorry for poor Olivia! Indeed, Freddy, you would pity her if you knew the whole!”

“Yes, I daresay I should. No harm in being sorry for her, but it won’t do to be making a friend of her.”

“But, Freddy, surely there can be no objection! Though we may dislike Mrs. Broughty, Olivia’s birth is respectable, for she is related to Lady Batterstown, and she, I know, is a friend of your Mama’s!” Freddy sighed. “Trouble is, Kit, you ain’t been on the town long enough to know the ins and the outs! Oliver Broughty was a dashed loose screw, by all I’ve ever heard, and it don’t make a ha’porth of odds if he was some kind of a third cousin to Lady Batterstown, or if he wasn’t. In fact, he was, but it’s what I was telling you t’other day: every family has its scaff and raff! We have! Thing is, don’t foist ‘em on the ton!”

Kitty wrinkled her brow. “It is true that Lady Batterstown seems not to have been very kind to the Broughtys. One cannot but feel that had she but befriended Olivia the poor girl might have achieved a very creditable alliance, for you cannot deny, Freddy, that she is most beautiful!”

“That ain’t enough,” said the worldly-wise Mr. Standen.

“Well, but it seems as though sometimes it is!” argued Kitty. “Olivia has been telling me about the beautiful Miss Gunnings, who were no better connected than she is, and yet, when their Mama brought them to London, they took the town by storm, and one of them married two Dukes!”

“No, really, Kit!” protested Mr. Standen. “Doing it too brown! Couldn’t have!”

“But indeed she did! First she was married to the Duke of Hamilton, and when he died she married the Duke of Argyll!”

“Oh, when he died!” said Freddy, glad to have this point elucidated. “No reason why she shouldn’t. Not but what this little ladybird won’t marry a Duke, let alone a couple of ‘em. Well, I put it to you, Kit! I don’t know how it was when these Gunning-girls of yours were on the town, but the only Duke I can think of who hasn’t been married for years is Devonshire, and it’s not a bit of use laying lures for him, because it’s common knowledge he tried to fix his interest with the Princess Charlotte, and it ain’t likely he’d take Olivia Broughty instead!”

“Of course I don’t mean that she should marry a Duke!” replied Kitty. “Only it would be too dreadful if she was sold—for one can call it nothing else!—to such a creature as Sir Henry Gosford!” She saw that these words had made a profound impression, and said triumphantly: “You are shocked, but I assure you—”

“I should dashed well think I am shocked!” interrupted Freddy. “You aren’t going to tell me that fellow visits Meg?”

“No, of course not—”

“Then where the deuce did you meet him?”

“I didn’t meet him! Meg pointed him out to me once, when we were driving in the Park, but she only said that he was a horrid old rake, and she did not even give him a common bow in passing! It is Olivia who has told me all about him, and I do think you must have felt for her, Freddy, had you been here! She is being quite persecuted with his attentions, and because he is so rich, and Lady Batterstown has not put Olivia in the way of receiving more eligible offers, Mrs. Broughty encourages his advances! Indeed, she positively forces him upon Olivia! How it will end I dare not think, for Olivia regards him with the greatest repugnance, and yet she is so much afraid of her Mama that she knows not what to do, and says that she fears sometimes that she may be compelled to do something desperate—though what this could be I don’t know. I cannot think that she would take the terrible step of putting a period to her existence!”

“Well, there ain’t any need for you to think it,” said Freddy, quite unmoved by this flight. “No wish to vex you, but Gosford ain’t the only buck throwing out lures to the girl!”

She said innocently: “No, no, she has received not one offer, Freddy!”

Mr. Standen, feeling himself quite unequal to the task of explaining to her the precise nature of the offers likely to be received by Miss Broughty, gave it up. He might have pointed out that dazzling beauties, unaccepted by the ton, and permitted to appear in public accompanied only by a cousin of unmistakeable vulgarity who showed only too ready a disposition to efface herself if a modish buck ogled her charge, did not commonly achieve brilliant alliances, but, on the contrary, were more in the habit of being offered cartes blanches by such connoisseurs as Mr. Westruther. Freddy was well aware of his cousin’s pursuit of the fair Olivia. He did not think that the attentions of such a notable Corinthian were distasteful to her; but he was very sure that however ardent Jack’s passion for her might be it would not carry him to the altar in her company. Whether he would succeed in mounting her as his latest mistress was a question which had not hitherto exercised Mr. Standen’s mind, since it had in no way concerned him. He now hoped very much that Mr. Westruther’s circumstances were not affluent enough to tempt Mrs. Broughty, for he perceived, nebulously but with dismay, that such a liaison would be attended by quite hideous complications. Mr. Standen, being blessed with sisters, entertained not the slightest doubt that Kitty, befriending Olivia, would be the recipient of all the secrets of her bosom. At the best, a certain crusading instinct in Miss Charing would undoubtedly lead her to kick up the devil of a dust, he thought. At the worst—but here tvtr. Standen’s powerful reasoning broke down, and he floundered in a sea of conjecture.

He had not forgotten that Kitty had confessed to him, on the road to London, that in coming to town she had a scheme in mind which she preferred not to disclose. There were moments when he thought he had a very fair idea of what this might be. He had been faintly surprised to learn from her that she hated Mr. Westruther, for her youthful adoration of so magnificent a personage had been common knowledge in the family. As far as he could be said to have considered the matter at all, Freddy had supposed that the childish passion had worn itself out. But having been privileged to observe Kitty’s demeanour when Mr. Westruther chanced to be present he no longer felt very sure of this. His Aunt Dolphinton, yielding to an uncertain temper, had informed him waspishly that Kitty had accepted his offer in a fit of pique; and while he paid very little heed to this at the time he soon began to think that it might be the truth. He could not otherwise account for Miss Charing’s affectionate demeanour towards him when, and only when, Mr. Westruther was present. Jack had accompanied them to the ball at the Pantheon, but so far from evincing any desire to dance with him, Kitty had accorded him one only of the waltzes he demanded, and had excused herself from attempting to perform the steps of the quadrille under his guidance. “No, the next country-dance, if you please!” she said.

“But I do not please! How can you be so impolite?” She laughed. “Oh, must I stand on ceremony with you? No, I have known you for too many years, and I don’t scruple to tell you that I daren’t trust myself to you in a quadrille, for you know, Jack, I made sad work of that waltz with you! To own the truth, I don’t care to dance waltzes or quadrilles with anyone but Freddy.”

So Mr. Westruther, bowing in mock-humility, allowed himself to be fobbed off with a country-dance; and was presently afforded an excellent opportunity, had he cared to avail himself of it, of observing how merrily Miss Charing twirled about the hall with Mr. Standen. But as he chose rather to flirt outrageously with Meg, Miss Charing could not be sure that he did observe it. When they stood up together in the country-dance, she no longer sparkled, and three times answered him at random. Called to order, she begged pardon, and said she had not been attending.

“Thinking of Freddy, no doubt,” said Mr. Westruther sardonically.

“No, I can’t plead that excuse. My mind was merely wandering.”

Since the ladies whom Mr. Westruther chose to honour with his attentions did not commonly allow their minds to wander when he was talking to them, he was momentarily taken-aback. Recovering, he laughed. “A heavy set-down! Can it be that I have had the ill-fortune to offend you, Kitty?” She was not obliged to reply to this, as they were separated just then by a movement of the dance. When they came together again, she asked him if he did not think Freddy a beautiful dancer.

“Certainly: the best in town,” he responded. “One might say that it is his only accomplishment—unless you hold his tailoring to be an accomplishment?”

“That is not a proper mode in which to speak of Freddy to me!” she countered forthrightly. “Don’t be absurd, Kitty!”

She disregarded this, but said seriously: “I think Freddy has what is better than accomplishments—a kind heart!”

“Or do you mean a yielding disposition?” said Mr. Westruther, quizzing her. “Poor Freddy!” She flushed. “He is your cousin, and you may sneer at him if you choose, but you shall not do so to me, Jack!”

“You are mistaken: the emotion that fills my breast is not contempt, but compassion.”

For the second time in her life, Miss Charing was conscious of a strong desire to slap that handsome, mocking face. She controlled it, saying in a repressive tone: “I believe that he may yet surprise you.”

“He has surprised me,” replied Mr. Westruther.

Miss Charing could only be glad when the dance ended.