Cotillion

Chapter IX

Lady Buckhaven greeted this late-coming visitor with unaffected pleasure. Mr. Westruther, raising her hand to his lips, said: “My dear Meg, I can’t express to you my delight at finding you at home—or my surprise! No sudden indisposition, I do trust!” He released her hand, and glanced, in his mocking way, at her companions.

It would have been too much to have said that he did not recognize Miss Charing in her elegant apparel, but she had the satisfaction of knowing that he was certainly surprised. His brows went up; he stood looking keenly at her for several moments before he spoke; and then he crossed the room towards her, and said laughingly: “Accept my sincerest felicitations, Kitty! Upon my word, I had almost made my most formal bow to my cousin’s unknown, fashionable guest! What a fortunate dog you are, Freddy! Really, I can’t feel that I congratulated you sufficiently!”

Freddy, who had regarded his entrance with marked disfavour, said: “Well, it don’t signify. Devilish queer times you choose to go paying visits!”

“Don’t I?” agreed Mr. Westruther, possessing himself of Kitty’s hands, and holding them so that he could look her up and down. “Charming, Kitty! You are as fine as fivepence! Were you guided by Freddy’s exquisite taste, or is this new touch all of your own devising?”

This bantering tone filled Miss Charing with a strong desire to slap him. Repressing so ungenteel an impulse, she replied affably: “Do you think I look well? I am so glad, but you should rather compliment Meg than Freddy.”

“Then I do compliment Meg,” he said, letting go her hands, and turning towards Lady Buckhaven. “Here you are, my little gamester! You came off all right.”

She took the slim packet he held out to her, and gave a delighted crow of triumph. “I knew it must win! I am very much obliged to you! Have I ruined you quite?”

“Oh, run me off my legs! I must be rol!ed-up, or put a pistol to my head: I can’t decide which fate to choose.”

She laughed. “How sorry I am! Freddy, only fancy! There was a horse running today called Mandarin! And Jack laid me odds it would not win! So absurd of him, for how could it help but win, with my dear Buckhaven on his way to China?”

Freddy, who was inclined to view her sudden interest in the Turf with disapprobation, was just about to state his opinion in a few simple, brotherly words when he was interrupted by Miss Charing, who said, with a great deal of vivacity: “Oh, Jack, I must show you what Freddy has given me! See! Are they not pretty? The very ornaments above all others I so much wished foV!”

Mr. Westruther put up his glass to look at the earrings. Nothing could have been blander than the tone he used to express his admiration of the trinkets, but Kitty was quick to perceive a flicker of surprise in his eyes, and was satisfied that whatever suspicions he might nourish she had at least puzzled him.

The tea-tray was brought in just then. Meg pressed Mr. Westruther to stay long enough to drink a cup with them. and Mr. Westruther, at his most provoking, said: “Do you think I dare? I have the oddest feeling that Freddy wishes me to go away. I had no notion of his being so strict a brother! My dear coz, I do trust that the queer times I choose for paying visits have not misled you into thinking that my intentions are dishonourable?”

“Good gracious!” cried Miss Charing, much diverted. “As though he could be so stupid! I am persuaded you might visit at any hour you pleased, and the only thing anyone would say is, Oh, if is only Jack!”

She then wished that she had held her tongue, for Mr. Westruther smiled approvingly at her, and said: “Well done, Kitty!”

He then proceeded, to her discomfiture, to enquire when he must set about the task of buying his wedding-gift, and, when she told him that the date of the ceremony was not yet decided, said: “Ah, exactly so! I was forgetting! The engagement is not immediately to be announced, is it? I wish you will tell me why you are keeping it a secret! I have been racking my brain to hit upon the reason, without the smallest success!”

Mr. Standen, somewhat to Kitty’s surprise, came unexpectedly to the rescue. “Measles,” he said. “M’mother means to give a dress-party for Kit. Can’t do it now. Better to wait a few weeks.”

“Of course!” said Mr. Westruther. “How could I be so bird-witted? And where do you mean to spend the honeymoon?”

“We—we have not made up our minds!” said Kitty.

“Yes, we have,” interpolated Freddy. “Going to Paris.” He thought for a moment, and added: “Kit wishes to meet her French relations.”

“My dear Kitty, why did you not tell me so?” said Mr Westruther, quite shocked. “Had I had the least suspicion of this very natural desire—! But it is not too late, I believe, to rectify my omissions! I have reason to think th&t one of your French relations is even now in London. Let me assure you that I shall lose no time in bringing him to visit you! You will like him excessively—a man of the first rank and character, I am persuaded! Dearest Meg, I must tear myself away from you—positively I must! Past ten o’clock, and I pledged to present myself at the Rockcliffes’ not an instant later than half-past nine! I must obviously make haste, or I shall be guilty of unpunctuality. I kiss your hands, my charmer, and Kitty’s cheek. Oh, you have no occasion to blush, absurd child! Recollect that I was your first love—-in your nursery-days, of course, so Freddy must not take umbrage!”

Her colour was indeed heightened, but she said, stammering a little: “Yes, indeed you w-were, but Freddy won’t take umbrage at that, for you are precisely a schooleiri’s notion of what a romantic hero should be, Jack!”

The laughter was back in his eyes. “A doubler!” he said.

Her own gaze fell; she said hurriedly: “But tell me! Who is this relation of mine, pray?”

“The Chevalier d’Evron. Rely upon me to make him known to you!”

A friendly nod to Freddy, and he was gone. Kitty said doubtfully. “Who can it be? I never heard of such a person, you know!”

“If you ask me,” said Freddy, in a mood of dark scepticism, “it’s a hum! Playing off his tricks, that’s what I thought!”

“Why, whatever can you mean?” cried Meg. “He said the Chevalier was a man of the first rank and character!”

“Heard him,” replied Freddy. “Might not have thought it was a bubble, if he hadn’t said that. Dashed smoky, that’s what it is! I know Jack! If this Chevalier of his is one of Kit’s relations, willing to lay you a monkey he turns out to be a dirty dish!” He saw that he had alarmed and slightly offended Miss Charing, and added kindly: “No need to take a pet! Very likely thing to happen! Everyone has ‘em in the family. We have. Well, you ask Meg if it ain’t so!”

“Yes, very true!” corroborated his sister. “And they always arrive, without the least warning, to spend a long visit just when one is giving a ton party!”

“Under a cloud, and telling you there’s an execution in the house,” nodded Freddy.

“Oh, you are thinking of Alfred Standen, and poor Papa having to pay all his debts! But what is much worse, Freddy, is people like Cousin Maria, really delighting in being .shabby-genteel! But there is not the least reason to suppose that the Chevalier is not perfectly respectable!”

“Lay you a monkey he ain’t,” repeated Freddy obstinately.

Neither lady accepted the wager, which, in the event, was a fortunate circumstance for him. Nothing was seen in Berkeley Square of Mr. Westruther during the succeeding two days, a defection on his part which would have troubled Miss Charing much more had she not been so sunk in dissipation as scarcely to notice it. Lady Buckhaven might say that London in March was as dull as could be, but in Miss Charing’s eyes all was wonderful, from Carlton House to an itinerant vendor of hot pies. She was determined to see all the sights, and to Mr. Standen fell the task of escorting her on an extensive and exhausting tour of the town. His dismay at learning what was expected of him held him speechless for a full minute, a space of time occupied by Miss Charing in reciting a list of the historic edifices she wished to see which made his eyes start from his head with horror. He managed to utter an inarticulate protest which made her pause and look enquiringly at him. “No, dash it, Kit!” he said. “You can’t think I’m going to totter all over London looking at a lot of buildings I don’t want to see! Very happy to take you driving in the Park, but that’s coming it too strong, my dear girl!”

Her face fell. “Meg thought you would take me,” she faltered. “She says there can be no objection.”

“Oh, she does, does she?” said Freddy, justly incensed. “Well, if that’s what she thinks why don’t she take you herself? Tell me that!”

“But, Freddy, indeed, I think she should not, in her situation! Might she not find it too fatiguing?”

“I should rather think she would! Anyone would!” said Freddy. “For the lord’s sake, Kit, don’t make such a goose of yourself! You’d be knocked into horse-nails!”

“No, no, I am persuaded I should not!”

“Well, I should!” said Freddy bluntly. “Besides, I don’t know anything about these curst places you want to see! Couldn’t tell you anything about ‘em!”

“Oh, but that need not signify! Look, I purchased this book in Hatchard’s shop this morning, and it tells one everything! It is called The Picture of London, and it says here that it is a correct guide to all the Curiosities, Amusements, Exhibitions, Public Establishments, and Remarkable Objects in and near London, made for the use of Strangers, Foreigners, and all Persons who are not intimately acquainted with the Metropolis!”

Freddy regarded the fat little volume with an eye of fascinated abhorrence. “Kit!” he ejaculated. “No, really, Kit! Not yourself! Can’t be! Nice pair of* flats we should look, going all over town with a dashed guide book!”

She looked wistfully at him. “Would you dislike it so very much? I won’t tease you—only I have longed all my life to see St. Paul’s, and Westminster Abbey, and the Waxworks, and the Guildhall, and London Bridge, and the Tower, and perhaps I may never have the opportunity again!” Her voice broke on an unmistakeable sob, but she swallowed resolutely, and laid the guide book aside, saying, with an uncertain smile: “I won’t think of it any more, [ promise you! I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I had had the least notion it would be disagreeable to you, for indeed, Freddy, I am not unmindful of how deep I am in your debt!”

“Now, my dear girl!” expostulated Freddy. “Kit, for the lord’s sake—! Oh, very well!”

A radiant face was turned towards him. “You will, Freddy!” Miss Charing cried joyfully. “You will take me? Oh, Freddy, how very good you are! I can never be sufficiently obliged to you!”

So Miss Charing, squired by Mr. Standen, and armed with the Picture of London (Price Five Shillings, Bound in Red), set forth on a tour of the Metropolis in Lady Legerwood’s town carriage, borrowed for the occasion by Mr. Standen. who doubted his ability to discover the locality of the various places of interest his betrothed was desirous of visiting, and so, with rare acumen, decided to entrust this task to his mother’s coachman rather than to attempt to find the way in his own natty tilbury.

Their first port of call was naturally Westminster Abbey. Had Mr. Standen had his way, it would also have been their last. Fresh as paint, and full of enthusiasm, Miss Charing was determined to miss nothing, even dragging Freddy to the twelve chapels, where an attendant verger took them in charge, and. imparted a great deal of information to them in a way that caused Freddy to whisper in Miss Charing’s ear that he couldn’t stand much more of this sort of thing, because it made him feel he was back at Eton. He conducted himself very creditably at Shakespeare’s grave, saying that at all events he knew who he was, and adding a further touch of erudition by telling Kitty an interesting anecdote of having escorted his mother to the theatre once to see Kean in Hamlet, and of having dreamt, during this memorable performance, that he walked smash into a fellow he hadn’t set eyes on for years. “And, by Jove, that’s just what I did do, the very next day!” he said. “Not that I wanted to, mind you, but there it was!” He admitted that he was glad to have seen the Coronation Chair; but the dilapidated effigies in the Kenry the Seventh Chapel, in particular the ghoulish countenance of Queen Elizabeth, proved to be his breaking-point. He said that he had never seen such a set of rum touches in his life, and represented to Miss Charing in the strongest terms that another five minutes spent in the Chapel would make them both feel as blue as megrim. Miss Charing agreed that the effigies were horrid, and said she believed that Mme Tussaud’s figures were superior. But when they reached the Hanover Square Rooms, where Miss Fishguard had once seen this famous collection, the luck favoured Freddy: Mme Tussaud’s exhibition had been removed to Blackheath years ago, and was now thought to be touring the country. Kitty was disappointed, but she bore up well, saying that they would instead visit the British Museum. However, reference to the Picture of London presented her with a piece of quelling information. “Spectators,” stated this invaluable handbook, “are allowed three hours for visiting the whole, one hour for each of the three departments.”

“Do you mean to tell me that if we go inside the place we shall have to stay for three hours?” demanded Freddy. “Why, I daresay we could do the thing in three minutes! What have we got to see there?”

“Well,” said Kitty, in a daunted voice, “I must say it doesn’t sound very interesting! The book says that there is one department devoted to Manuscripts and Medals, »nd one to Natural and Artificial Products, and the third is Printed Books.”

“You don’t mean it!” Freddy ejaculated. “The thing’s a dashed take-in! A pretty set of bubble-merchants they must be, the fellows that look after that place! I’ll tell you what, Kit: it’s a fortunate thing you brought that book! Why, if we hadn’t had it we should have been done brown as a pair of berries! Wonder if m’father knows about it?”

“Well, I don’t think we need visit it,” said Kitty. She flicked over the pages of the guide book, but suddenly bethought her of her hostess’s parting admonition. “Oh, Meg said I must go to see the marbles which Lord Elgin brought from Greece! She says everyone has seen them! They are at Burlington House, she told me.”

Freddy said severely that it was a pity she had not remembered the marbles before they came to Hanover Square, but he gave the direction to the coachman, and confided, as the carriage wended its way southward again, that he would not object to taking a look at them. “Deuce of a dust kicked up about ‘em!” he said. “Seem to be all the crack, though.”

But when, having, as he put it, dropped the blunt for two tickets of admission and a catalogue, he confronted these treasures of ancient Greece, he was quite dumbfounded, and only recovered his voice when he was called upon to admire the Three Fates, from the eastern pediment. “Dash it, they’ve got no heads!” he protested. “No, but, you see, Freddy, they are so very old! They have been damaged!” explained Miss Charing.

“Damaged! I should rather think so! They haven’t got any arms either! Well, if this don’t beat the Dutch! And just look at this, Kit!”

“Birth of Athene from the brain of Zeus,” said Kitty, consulting the catalogue.

“Birth of Athene from what!”

“The central groups, which are the most important features of the composition, are missing,” said Kitty, in propitiating accents. “And the catalogue says that the metopes are not in good preservation either, so perhaps we should just study the frieze, which is excessively beautiful!”

But the disclosure that he had been maced of his blunt by a set of persons whom he freely characterized as hell-kites only to see a collection of marbles of which the main parts were missing so worked upon him that he could not be brought to recognize the merits of the frieze, but seemed instead to be so much inclined to seek out the author of this attempt to gull the public that Kitty hastily announced her wish to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral, and coaxed him out of the building.

During the drive to the City, Kitty diligently studied her handbook. She was conscious of a slight feeling of fatigue, so when she discovered that the guide thought poorly of the interior of St. Paul’s, likening it, in fact, to a vast vault, she fell in with Freddy’s suggestion that they should content themselves with a view of the exterior. After this, she thought, they ought to drive to Cornhill, to look at the Bank of England, and the Royal Exchange. But here again the Picture of London came to Freddy’s rescue. “It is unnecessary to describe minutely such architecture as that of the Royal Exchange,” stated the guide austerely. “It is of a mixed kind, in bad taste.”

“Well, there’s no sense in going to look at that!” said Freddy, relieved. “What’s it say about the Bank of England?”

“ ‘One of the wonders of commerce; and one of the abortions of art,’ “ read out Miss Charing.

“Is it, though? Well, that settles it! We needn’t go to Cornhill at all. You know, Kit, that’s a dashed good book! We can go home now!”

“Yes, for we should scarcely have time to visit the Tower, I suppose,” agreed Kitty. “Only do you think we should see some of the prisons?”

“See the prisons?” exclaimed Freddy. “Why?”

“Well, I don’t precisely know, but the book says that ‘no stranger who visits London should omit to view these mansions of misery’.”

But Freddy decided that they had had enough misery for one day, and bade the coachman drive back to Berkeley Square, reminding Miss Charing, when she suggested that they ought, perhaps, to pause at the Temple on the way, that since she was accompanying Meg to an informal party that evening it would not do for her to be late in returning home. She agreed to this, consoling herself with the reflection that the Temple might easily be visited on their way to the Tower on the morrow.

Freddy groaned, but attempted no remonstrance. Any hope that he might have cherished that Miss Charing would be too weary to embark upon a second voyage of exploration was slain by her appearance on the following morning, dressed in a very smart habit, and obviously in fine fettle. She took her place beside him in the carriage, drew the Picture of London from her muff, and proved to him, by reading aloud from this book, that it clearly behoved her to see the Guildhall on the way to the Tower. This ordeal behind them, the rest of the day was spent more agreeably than Freddy had expected. He would not have chosen to waste his time in such a fashion, and he could only deprecate Miss Charing’s determination to omit no corner of the various buildings from her tour; but he was pleasantly surprised to find that the Tower housed a fine collection o< wild beasts; and he was even roused to real interest in the Mint, where they were allowed to watch the stamping of various coins. A tendency on Miss Charing’s part to brood over the sufferings of such former visitors to the Tower as Lady Jane Grey and Sir Walter Raleigh he quelled, saying that there was no sense in falling into a fit of the dismals about things which had happened in the Middle Ages; and a moving account of the behaviour of the Princess Elizabeth at the Traitors’ Gate quite failed to impress him.

“Silly thing to do!” he remarked. “Shouldn’t wonder at it if she caught a chill. I had an uncle who got soaked to the skin once. Had an inflammation of the lungs. Dead as a herring within the week. Come along, let us take a look at this Ladies’ Line they talk about!”

It was upon their return from this expedition, and while Kitty was still describing to Meg some of the tilings she had seen, that Mr. Jack Westruther paid a formal call in Berkeley Square, and brought with him the Chevalier d’Evron.

Any apprehensions engendered by Freddy’s gloomy forebodings were put to flight on the instant. The Chevalier was a handsome young man, with a lively, intelligent pair of eyes, beautifully glossy locks of a light brown, cut and curled d la cherubim, and an air and deportment worthy of the first circles. His long-tailed coat of bottle-green had obviously been fashioned for him by a master; his fawn pantaloons admirably became a pair of really excellent legs; his linen was meticulously starched; and his Hessian boots would have furnished anyone with a very tolerable mirror. If Mr. Westruther, a careless beau, thought those cherubim ringlets a trifle effeminate; and Mr. Standen, a high stickler, considered the Chevalier’s waistcoat to be rather too florid, these were faults of style which the ladies were easily able to overlook. The Chevalier’s bow almost put Freddy’s to shame; air and address were alike distinguished; and when, to the advantages of a handsome face and a good figure, he was found to add a very slight foreign accent to his speech his success with the fair sex was assured.

Kitty, who had been staring at him while he bowed over Meg’s hand, exclaimed suddenly: “But—You are Camille!”

He turned towards her, smiling. “But yes! I am Camille, little cousin! I did not dare to think that I could hold a place in your memory. Tell me, I beg of you!—did she long survive my surgery, that blonde beauty? Alas, that I should have forgotten her name!”

She laughed, warmly shaking hands with him. “Rosabel —and indeed she survived for many years! I am so happy to see you again! I hope my uncle, and your brother, are both well.’”

“I thank you, very well. And your amiable guardian?”

“Yes, indeed. Are you—upon a visit to England? Where do you stay?”

He told her that he was lodging in Duke Street, which, however little it might convey to country-bred Kitty, served to convince Meg that his domicile was as unimpeachable as his manners. Very well-pleased to add so personable a young man to her circle, she extended to him an invitation to a ;,rnall rout-party she was holding three days later. He accepted with just the right degree of gratitude, and took his leave, after a visit lasting for a correct half-hour, in an atmosphere of general approval, even Freddy acknowledging that he seemed to be a tolerable fellow. It had transpired, during the course of conversation, that he, like Lady liuckhaven and the engaged couple, meant to be present at the Non-Pareil Theatre that evening, to see a new play which was being put on there; he begged to be allowed to visit her ladyship’s box during the interval, was accorded a gracious permission, and bowed himself out in a manner which led Meg to say that only a man accustomed to move in the world of ton could get himself out of a room with such ease and grace.

Kitty was so much delighted to have met again one of whom she cherished the kindest memories that her transports might have been expected to have cast her betrothed into agonies of jealousy. Mr. Standen managed without effort to preserve his equanimity, a fact of which his cousin’s .irnused eyes took due note.

“Seems a good enough sort of a fellow,” Freddy said cautiously. “Mind, I didn’t like his waistcoat, but, then, I Jon’t like yours either, coz, so I daresay it don’t signify. Where did you meet him? I haven’t seen him before.”

“But you have been in Leicestershire, Freddy,” Jack reminded him. “I fancy the Chevalier has not long been amongst us, though I am told that he was reared in England.”

“Yes, that is quite true,” Kitty said. “I think my uncle came to England on account of the troubles in France, but Uncle Matthew so much dislikes French people that he would never invite my relations to Arnside. And so I never saw Camille more than once in my life, and that was when I was quite a little girl. But I never forgot him, or how kind he was in mending the doll Claud sent to the guillotine!”

“I cannot tell you, my dear Kitty, how happy I am that it has been my privilege to bring you together again,” said Jack, rising from his chair. “I must tear myself from you, Meg. How unkind it was of you, by the way, not to have invited me to go with you tonight! Our dear Kitty’s first visit to the theatre! It is an event—one which I would give much to witness. But you will tell me all about it, Kitty, won’t you?”

“You would find that a great bore, I am persuaded!” she retorted.

“No, no! When have I ever been bored by your confidences?” he said, quizzing her.

“But, Jack, I will not be so wronged!” Meg cried, “It is Freddy’s party, you must know, not mine!”

“Then it was very unkind of Freddy,” he said, raising her hand to his lips.

“Thought you was promised to Stichill tonight?” said Freddy.

“I am, of course,” admitted Mr. Westruther. “But it was still very unkind in you not to have invited me!” He then took an unconventional leave of Kitty, pinching her chin, and bidding her enjoy herself, and went away.

“Never knew such a complete hand!” said Freddy. “I must say, I’m glad he ain’t coming. For one thing, he’d very likely cut the piece up, and for another, five’s an awkward number. Stonehouse is going along with us, and we’ll have supper afterwards at the Piazza. You’ll like that, Kit.”

There could be no doubt of this; her eyes were sparkling already in anticipation of the treat. Mr. Standen, returning to his lodging in Ryder Street, to change his dress for the evening’s entertainment, nourished a faint hope that a visit to the theatre might give her thoughts a new turn. He was perfectly willing to escort her to any place of amusement frequented by ladies of quality, but he was much inclined to think that any more expeditions such as those which had rendered the last two days hideous would send him into Leicestershire on a repairing lease.

The success of the evening was assured from the moment that Mr. Stonehouse, a shy young gentleman afflicted with a slight stammer, made his bow, and showed plainly by his demeanour that he very much admired Miss Charing’s style of beauty. To a girl who, besides having lived in rural seclusion, had never been used to think herself even tolerably handsome, the appreciative gleam in Mr. Stonehouse’s eye was as exhilarating to the spirits as a glass of champagne. When they took their seats in the box, they attracted some attention, and several persons, who had exchanged bows and smiles with Meg, looked very hard at Kitty, one foppish man even going so far as to level his quizzing-glass in her direction. She thought this very rude, but she was not altogether displeased until Freddy, observing the interest of the dandy, said in a resigned tone: “There’s that fellow Luss. Thought he was out of town. Pity he ain’t. Never knew anyone more inquisitive! Lay you odds we shall have him here in the first interval, trying to nose out who you are, Kit!”

“Is he staring so because I am a stranger?” asked Kitty, a trifle dashed.

“That’s it. No need to put yourself about,” Freddy said reassuringly. “It ain’t that there’s anything amiss: in fact, you look very becomingly.”

This temperate praise exercised a rather damping effect upon her spirits, but these soon rose again, for Mr. Stonehouse showed unmistakeable signs of wishing to engage her attention. While Freddy and his sister exchanged desultory remarks about their various acquaintances in the audience, he drew his chair rather closer to Kitty’s, and politely enquired if she was enjoying her visit to the Metropolis. He seemed surprised to learn that it was her first; and when she told him innocently that Freddy had been so obliging as to take her to Westminster Abbey and to the Tower, looked quite stunned.

“F-Freddyl” he repeated. “D-did you say W’Westminster Abbey]”

“Yes, and also the Tower. We meant to go into St. Paul’s as well, but the guide book seemed not to think highly of the interior, so we did no more than look at the outside. But we saw the Elgin Marbles!”

“N-not Freddy!” he said incredulously.

“Yes, indeed he did! Though I am bound to own that he did not care much for them.”

“I shouldn’t think he w-would,” said Mr. Stonehouse. “I c-can’t imagine how he was p-prevailed upon to go!” He coloured, and added apologetically: “No, I d-don’t mean that! I C’Can, of course, but it’s very surprising! The best of good fellows, you know, b-but—” His voice broke. “Elgin Marbles!” he uttered. “Oh, Word!”

Freddy, overhearing, said severely: “Yes, but there’s no need for you to spread it all over town, Jasper!”

“I c-couldn’t resist it!” said Mr. Stonehouse frankly. “D-didn’t you admire ‘em, Freddy?”

Since Mr. Standen felt strongly on the subject, it was fortunate that his sister created a diversion at that moment by calling Kitty’s attention to a box on the opposite side of the house. “Look, Kitty! There is the Chevalier, just come in with Lady Maria Yalding and her sister! Freddy I If she has not brought Drakemire with her! Well!”

Kitty, following the direction of her eyes, saw a party of four people in the box. A stout woman, very fashionably dressed but neither beautiful nor in quite the first blush of youth, was disposing herself in her chair, assisted by the Chevalier, who held her fan and her reticule for her, and carefully arranged her elaborately trimmed cloak over the back of the chair. A thinner edition of herself, who bore more the appearance of a hired companion than of a sister, sat down beside her, somewhat perfunctorily attended by the fourth member of the party, a dessicated man with a misogynistic expression.

“Lady Maria is the fat one, and that’s her elder sister, Lady Jane,” explained Meg. “Annerwick’s daughters, you know: he has five, and all as plain as puddings! No fortune, of course: Mama says that old Lord Annerwick ran through thirty thousand pounds before he was twenty-five years old even!”

“Good gracious!” said Kitty, looking in surprise towards Lady Maria’s box. “I had supposed her to be very rich indeed! She wears so many jewels and feathers!”

“Oh, yes! For, by the luckiest chance, Mr. Yalding wished to marry her, and although he was quite an ungenteel person—I believe, in fact, a merchant!—the Annerwicks could not but be thankful.”

“Didn’t want to marry her,” interpolated Freddy. “Wanted to be in the ton. Offered for the Calderbank girl first, but he smelled too much of the shop for Calderbank. Queer old fellow! Didn’t do him much good, either. Nailed up a couple of years ago.”

“N-no, but it d-did Lady M-Maria good,” said Mr. Stonehouse. “He left his whole f-fortune to her. She saw to that! D-dragon of a female!” He glanced across the house. “Stupid, too. Who’s the young b-blade making—” He stopped abruptly, his question cut short by a nip from Meg’s fingers.

But Freddy, who had moved beyond the reach of his sister’s hand, answered it. “Cousin of Miss. Charing’s. French fellow. Think he’s dangling after her, Kit?”

“Oh, Freddy, surely he would not do so?” exclaimed Kitty, shocked.

“Might,” said Freddy. “Wouldn’t myself, but plenty of fellows have. Well, bound to! Worth a hundred thousand, they say. Trouble is, she’s a dashed queer-tempered woman. Uphall made a push to fix his interest with her. She’d have had him, too, but he couldn’t bring himself up to scratch.

Told me he’d sooner be rolled-up. Says it ain’t so bad in a sponging’house—once you get used to it. Good God! For the lord’s sake, don’t look to the left, Meg! Aunt Dolphinton!”

With great presence of mind, Meg unfurled her fan, and plied it so that it hid her profile. “Has she seen us?” she hissed.

“Don’t know, and I’m dashed well not going to look. She’s got Dolph with her, that’s all I can tell you. We shall have to take a stroll outside after the act, or she’ll start beckoning to us. You know what she is!”

Just then the curtain rose, and although Freddy’s enjoyment of the drama was marred by what he felt to be the urgent necessity to evolve a scheme that would enable them all to escape a compulsory visit to Lady Dolphinton’s box, Kitty instantly forgot the ordeal ahead, and sat throughout the act in a trance of rapt interest, her lips just parted, her gaze riveted, and her hands tightly clasping her fan. At the fall of the curtain Freddy made a creditable attempt to hustle the ladies out of the box before his redoubtable relative had had time to observe them; but owing to Meg’s having lost her handkerchief, and to Kitty’s having to be roused from her lingering trance, this failed. Before he could achieve his end, a knock fell on the door, and the Chevalier entered, so that the project had to be abandoned.

Kitty could not but be glad. That her handsome cousin should dangle after a fortune was a suggestion that distressed her. His prompt appearance in Freddy’s box seemed to give the lie to it; and nothing in his demeanour betrayed the least desire on his part to return to Lady Maria’s side. In full view of his hostess, he stayed chatting, very gay and debonair; and when Kitty, rendered quite uncomfortable by a fixed stare from the opposite box, told him that she feared he might be offending Lady Maria, his brows flew up in surprise, and he exclaimed: “But, no! How should it be possible? I have informed her that my cousin is present—my cousin whom for so many years I have not seen!”

“Well, she looks very cross,” said Kitty.

“I am not very well acquainted with Lady Maria, but it seems that she suffers from bad humours,” he said, with a droll look. “But I should not say so! I am, in effect, an ingrate! She has been most kind to one who is without friends in London, and—you understand my lips are sealed!”

“All very w-well,” said Mr. Stonehouse, when, by tacit consent, he and Mr. Standen withdrew from the box to take an airing in the corridor, “b-but if he hasn’t any f’friends in London, w-why did he c-come here? N-not one of the Embassy people, is he?” He added hastily: “I don’t m-mean to say that he isn’t p-perfectly respectable! It just struck m-me that it was odd!” He became aware of a lanky figure in his path, and put up his glass. “Oh! Dolphinton! How d’ye do?”

Lord Dolphinton addressed himself to his cousin, briefly and to the point. “Mama says you are to bring Kitty to her box,” he stated. “Freddy, I didn’t know you were going to bring Kitty to town, did I?”

Mr. Standen, though irritated by this peremptory command, was not deaf to the note of appeal in Lord Dolphinton’s voice. “No, no!” he said soothingly. “At least, I don’t know what you knew, Dolph, but no need to get into a taking, old fellow! Too late to bring Kit along to see my aunt now! You go back and tell her so! Bring her after the next act!” He then turned his relative gently round, and gave him an encouraging thrust, remarking to Mr. Stonehouse, as Dolphinton ambled away: “Sevenmonths’ child, y’know: daresay it accounts for it! Better go back and warn Kit!”

“Freddy!” said Mr. Stonehouse, detaining him. “What i.>; this? I m-mean, Elgin MMarbles—WWestminster Abbey—! Are you g-going to be m-married?”

“No, no!” Freddy said involuntarily. Recollecting himself, he added: “What I mean is—only betrothed! Keeping it a secret, Jasper! Family reasons!”

“Oh!” said Mr. Stonehouse, much mystified. “Of c-course, if you d-don’t want it known, I shan’t s-say anything! But why—”

“Curtain’s going up!” interrupted Freddy desperately, retreating into his box much in the fashion of a rabbit hotly pursued by a terrier.