Imprudent Lady

Chapter 9

The next morning Prudence received two notes, one of them accompanied by a spray of violets, which she had happened to mention liking, from Mr. Seville. He requested her company for a drive that afternoon. Just as well I cannot go with him, she thought, remembering her appointment with Dammler. The other envelope bore a crest, and when she opened it, it was a scrawl of two lines from Dammler. “Miss Mallow: I can’t bring Shilla to you this p.m. after all. She has other plans, and we daren’t buck her. See you soon. Be Prudent about S. Dammler.”

She felt a letdown of no small magnitude, then read the note again for any hidden compliment or insult. It was facetious-but he was always joking. Some business had come up that detained him. There was no one whose opinion he valued more than hers. He would come soon. “Be Prudent about S.” Seville, of course. Strange he hadn’t said what detained him. Had it been herself breaking the appointment, she would have felt a complete explanation necessary. And no explanation occurred to her either which could be important enough to break a date with Dammler. From suspicion she slid easily into jealousy, and she was soon possessed of the idea that Shilla should more accurately read Phyrne. That would account for his not giving her the reason. No doubt a gentleman friend would have understood at a glance what he meant and accepted it. Her eye fell on Mr. Seville’s spray of violets. It never occurred to Dammler to send her a flower. Why should she sit home while he was out enjoying himself? She picked up her pen and accepted Mr. Seville’s offer. A drive in the park was quite unexceptionable, and she was not doing it to spite Dammler. Not the highest stickler could take exception to it, and she hoped she met Dammler head-on with his Phyrne.

Mr. Seville called at three o’clock, carrying a large bouquet of flowers. Her innate sense of taste and comedy laughed at this second shower of blooms in one day, but she accepted the roses with a good grace. “I see you wear my violets next to your heart,” Mr. Seville teased, his brown eyes dancing.

“Be Prudent about S” darted into her head. “Oh, but a spray of flowers is generally worn on the jacket, you know, and the left side is less in the way than the right.”

“They are lucky violets,” he said with a sigh as they went out the door. He let his eye rest long on them, or possibly the bosom beneath them.

“Shall we go, Mr. Seville?”

“Yes, there is no privacy here, in your uncle’s house.” Clarence, informed that Mr. Seville was a nabob, had been fawning.

“Uncle likes to meet my friends,” she explained.

“Yes, that is natural. He seemed not to dislike me,” he said, in an excess of understatement.

“He likes you very much,” Prudence assured him.

“Still, it must be difficult for you, under his roof, with no privacy to meet your friends at your own ease. You, who move in literary circles, must often feel the want of a place of your own.”

“I sometimes feel I could work better if I had a place of my own, but Mama and I are in rather straitened circumstances since my father died.”

“It seems a pity, if money is all that stands in your way.”

“But money is important, especially when you haven’t much of it.”

“A lady like you shouldn’t have to worry about money. You should be dressed in fine gowns and jewels.” Prudence looked down at her very best blue outfit and thought the remark uncalled for. “Real diamonds, I mean, not those little chips you wore the other evening.”

“I am not likely ever to have diamonds. I manage to get along without them.”

“Did you never have a desire to dress yourself in silk and jewels?”

“Occasionally,” she admitted, a vision of Phyrne in her chiffon and diamonds passing through her head.

“You’d take the shine out of them all, Miss Mallow. Countenance-you have countenance. It is your being a literary woman, and so dashed clever. Able to drop a droll word into any conversation and make it sparkle. Better than diamonds. Diamonds can be bought, but wit is inherited, like a title.”

“Or money,” she laughed in agreement, thinking he was not so bad after all.

“Yes, by Jove, like money. Well, there’s more than one way of getting the blunt, what?”

“Yes, one can earn it by hard work.”

“An attractive lady wouldn’t have to work too hard to earn it. A man of means would be happy to share his with her.” Mr. Seville reached out and grabbed her gloved hand. She hardly knew what to think, but she quickly decided to be prudent about S; and recovering her hand, she edged a little closer to her own side of the carriage.

“What a smart phaeton that is,” she said, pointing out the window to where a high-perch phaeton was being tooled past by a very dashing lady. Prudence looked closely to see if she recognized her, but she was having no luck in spotting Dammler and his friend.

“Would you like to have such a rig?”

“Yes, indeed, I’m sure anyone would, though I shouldn’t know how to handle it so well as that lady does.”

“Her nags are nothing out of the ordinary. I have a pair of matched bays, high stepping fillies-smashing they’d look harnessed to a bang-up little phaeton or dormeuse.”

“That sounds very nice. Why don’t you get such a carriage for them, Mr. Seville?”

“I will, by Jove,” he answered promptly. “Anything you like.”

“Only if you like, I meant,” she countered in a little confusion.

“I think we like pretty well the same things,” he said, smiling with satisfaction at his progress.

“Shall we get out and walk a little?” Prudence suggested as they were entering the park, and the carriage suddenly seemed too small.

The Nabob was all complaisance with her every whim. He was gratified to see several eyes turn to watch them. Miss Mallow was becoming known to Society, more through her association with Dammler than through her writings, and Seville was not the only gentleman who was beginning to look in her way. He lacked distinction and knew it. He wanted a mistress who would set him above the common herd, and thought he had hit on a capital idea in having Miss Mallow fill the position. She was not a common lightskirt but a rising star in the literary firmament. As a writer, and such a worldly creature, she would not be aghast at the idea of union out of wedlock, though he fancied he would be her first. The uncle and mother might be a bit of a nuisance, but it was clear as a pikestaff she couldn’t stand the uncle, silly old fool, and the mother could be bought off. Well, the girl had as well as said he’d have to come down heavy. Diamonds and a rigout for the horses were only the beginning of it. He’d have to set her up in style, and let her entertain her friends. Not Dammler, though. He’d draw the line at that.

Before he took her home, he invited her to a play the next evening, but she was wary of going into public with him again alone and claimed a previous appointment. He took this in good part as coyness, and felt the time had come to begin distributing his largesse.

The next morning yet another arrangement of flowers arrived, and concealed among the stems was a blue velvet box. Miss Mallow was struck dumb, upon opening it, to see a fine set of matched diamonds sparkling at her. She lifted them out and beheld a necklace. Her first thought was that it was a mistake. The box had somehow been put in with her flowers by accident. She ran to her mother, asking if she should not go back to the flower stall and return them. Clarence had to be called in on such a momentous decision as this to give the male viewpoint.

“What would a set of diamonds be doing at the flower stall?” he asked reasonably.

“They must have been meant to go in some other arrangement of flowers,” Prudence suggested. “They are likely a wedding gift or some such thing. Will you come with me, Uncle? I dislike to go into the streets carrying anything so valuable, and we cannot send a footboy on such an errand.”

“That must certainly be the explanation,” her mother agreed, fingering the stones lovingly.

While they talked, Prudence opened the little card that accompanied the flowers, and her eyes widened. Mr. Seville had laboured long over a suitably discreet message to send along with his bribe and come up with the words, “Pray accept this small necklace as a token of my esteem, and an indication of my intentions.” She handed the card to her mother. “It is no mistake,” she said. “Mr. Seville sent the necklace.”

Mrs. Mallow had time to read half the message before Clarence had the card out of her hands. “The fellow is a rascal!” he charged angrily.

Mrs. Mallow retrieved the card and read the rest of it. “It is no such a thing, Clarence,” she answered. “See, he speaks of his ‘intentions.’ It is an engagement gift.”

“We are not engaged,” Prudence said, horrified. “Why, I scarcely know the man. It is ludicrous to speak of an engagement on such short acquaintance.”

Clarence was again examining the card. “You’re right, Wilma. ‘An indication of my intentions,’ he says. He means to have Prudence.

“I don’t mean to have him!” Prudence replied.

“Not have him? Nonsense,” Clarence declared. “He is a fine fellow. Knows everyone. Ho, what a joke it is, us thinking he meant it as an insult. He would not dare to insult Prue. He knows pretty well I am connected with Sir Alfred and Lord Dammler. Well, this will teach Dammler to shilly-shally around with his courting. Snapped right up under his nose. Serve him right.”

“Uncle, I do not mean to accept Mr. Seville or the necklace.”

He was deaf to her protests. “Wait until Mrs. Hering hears this. Her feather is dry.I’ll take her picture round to her myself this afternoon and tell her what my niece is up to. Real diamonds,” he said, opening the blue velvet box. “It is a pity I couldn’t paint them. I must do a portrait of Mr. Seville. Some little symbol of Seville being named after him can be slipped in. A corner of the old Gothic cathedral perhaps, or the Alcazar. I daresay I have a picture of it somewhere about the house. I might do him in costume as a grandee-Lawrence is always dressing his models up in costumes of some sort or other. I don’t like to satisfy him to copy his trick. No, I will do Mr. Seville in modern dress, with the Alcazar in the background, and a nice piece of gold in his hand. Gold paints up nicely.”

“I will return the necklace,” Prudence said.

Her mother regarded her in uncertainty. “It seems a pity, Prue. Can you not care for him? He seems a very nice gentlemanly sort of a man, so lively and good-natured. You are getting on…"

“No, Mama. I will not be bought.”

Clarence, holding the necklace to the light muttered to himself. "There’s yellow and orange in them. I never tried yellow and orange to do a diamond. And blue and green and purple. It’s a rainbow is what it is. A prism. There is the secret of doing a diamond! Come to the studio, Prue. We will paint you in the diamond necklace, with Seville in the background-the city I mean."

“I’m giving them back,” Prudence said, snatching them from his fingers.

“Think what you are about, Prue,” he warned. “You’ll never get another offer like this. The man is rich as Croesus. You’ll never have to write another word. Burning out your eyes with that scribbling… You will be dashing off to balls and coronations and Spain.”

“He is a mere commoner, Uncle,” Prudence reminded him, to mitigate the blow of her refusal.

“I daresay he is a marquis or some such thing-whatever sort of a handle they use in Spain, if the truth were known. They wouldn’t have named a city after him for nothing. On your honeymoon you ought to nip over to Seville and look into it. He has a Spanish look about him, now I come to think of it. The eyes are dark, and the face quite swarthy.”

“There will be no honeymoon.”

“And even if he ain’t,” Clarence rattled on, deaf to any drum but his own, “he can buy up a title. They are for sale if the pockets are plump enough. Everyone knows that. He might start off with a simple ‘Sir’ and work his way up to a lordship.”

“I am returning this necklace immediately,” Prudence said, and left with it in her hand.

Her mother rushed after her. “He will be calling today, after this. Wait and hear what he has to say, Prue. Think about it a little. Be wise, my dear. You were always so prudent before.”

“I am being prudent now, Mama. I do not wish to marry Mr. Seville. Indeed I do not. I don’t care for him in the least-in that way I mean.”

“My dear, you must not hope Dammler means to have you. He is quite above your touch. He thinks of you only as a friend. It is clear from his manner.”

Prudence looked aghast. She had not thought she was so transparent as that. “I think of him as a friend, too.”

“A little more than that on your side, I think,” her mother said gently. “I do not mean to force you. Such a thought would be quite repellent to me. You are all grown up now. You must do as you think best, but don’t be rash, my dear. Think of it a bit. It would be very fine to be independent-not to have to worry about the future. We are very comfortable now, but Clarence will not live forever. Sooner or later his son George will be taking over, and he will not want to be saddled with us.”

Prudence did not change her mind, but she agreed to think about it before acting. Every word her mama said was true. They faced a bleak future of comparative poverty. It could be removed by her accepting an offer from a gentleman she did not actively dislike-one who could and would give her everything she wanted, and more importantly, would let her give Mama what she wanted. But the price was too high. She could not consider it independence to be bound leg and wing to Mr. Seville. She did not admit to any other reason for refusing him in her ruminations.

In the afternoon he called, and to remove him from Uncle Clarence’s congratulations, she grabbed her wrap and went out with him.

“You had my little gift?” he asked, as soon as the coach bowled away from the house.

She had it right in her reticule to return. “I cannot accept it, Mr. Seville.”

“It is a mere bauble. When the matter is settled to our mutual satisfaction, I will give you a real necklace. I am not a skint, Miss Mallow. You will not find me clutch-fisted.”

“I know I would not. You are very generous, Mr. Seville, but I cannot feel we would suit.”

“I know I am not clever like you, but you would be able to smarten me up if you felt it worth your while. We would be happy together. A nice apartment-house if you wish-either in the city or country. All would be to your orders.”

She repined, but she did not weaken a whit. “No, really. I think of you only as a friend. I had not thought of any closer association.”

“If it’s money that worries you…"

“No, it’s not that. I know you are wealthy-generous.”

“A cash settlement beforehand. Everything in order right and tight.”

“No, please, it sounds so very mercenary. I do not wish to haggle over it. I am flattered-honoured, but I cannot accept your offer.”

“Is it your family that worries you?”

“Oh, no, they thought it a very good thing. They were not in the least averse. It is quite my own decision.”

This easy capitulation of the family bothered him. “I felt your uncle would not mind, but mothers sometimes throw a rub in the way.”

“Mama is anxious to see me settled. She worries about the future.”

“I would take good care of you.”

“I cannot feel it would answer.” She took the velvet box from her reticule and handed it to him.

“Keep it,” he said magnanimously. “I don’t despair yet. I will have at you again, Miss Mallow. I don’t give up easily.”

“No, it would be improper in me to keep it when I don’t mean to marry you,” she said, and shoved it to him.

Looking with downcast eyes at the box, she did not see his eyes start at the dread word “marry.” He could scarcely believe his ears. No mention had been made of marriage. What had she got into her head-to think he would marry a little nobody without a connection in the world? He feared Miss Mallow was making sport of him. But when she did finally look up, the innocent lustre of her eyes disabused him of that idea. He felt weak, and very fortunate indeed to have escaped so easily from his unprecedented predicament. Only think if she had accepted! He took the box without a word and stuck it into his pocket.

“I expect you would like to go home?” he said a moment later.

She nodded. "I'm sorry,” she said, before she descended from the coach. “I hope we may continue friends?”

“You should be more careful in your friends, Miss Mallow,” he ventured to warn her. Why, the chit was not up to snuff at all. Leading him on-no one with the least bronze would have mistaken his intentions. Her, gallivanting with Dammler and the wildest bucks in town. Who would have thought her still wet behind the ears?

“I am careful, Mr.Seville,” she answered calmly. “Goodbye.”

He didn’t bother going with her to the door, though he descended and handed her down from the carriage. He brushed his brow when she was gone, and thanked a merciful providence at his close escape.

Prudence longed to go to her room, to lie down and worry whether she had done the right thing, but no such luxury was allowed her. Clarence and her mother had to be told the whole story, and berate her with words and glances respectively for her folly. To escape them, she said that now she had chosen a career over marriage, she must get to work, and went to her study.

“I hope your daughter knows what she is about,” Clarence said to his sister. She was not his niece today, turning off a Nabob.

Prudence closed the door behind her and sighed. What a dear refuge her study was! Shakespeare, Milton and Aristotle chided her silently from matching frames with their subtle smiles, but she ignored them and pulled out her manuscript.

It was a quarter of an hour before she was sufficiently calmed to work, and immediately she was interrupted. But it was a happy Interruption. Dammler tapped on the door and stepped in, having dispensed with even the appearance of formality by telling Rose she needn’t bother announcing him.

“Hello, Miss Mallow,” he said smiling cheerily. “Shilla and I bring our humblest apologies for missing our appointment, but we have an excellent excuse.”

An excuse she felt was the right word for it, for the reason she still held to be Phyrne. “But before we get on with the good news, I will convey the bad,” he said, assuming an aspect of severity that was at odds with his jaunty manner. “Ithas come to my burning ears that you did not heed my warning. You’ve been gallivanting with the Nabob again. Don’t deny it!” His finger waved at her in a playful manner. “Riding in the park with him yesterday and hanging on his arm in the most vulgar manner. I mean to be firm with you and Shilla in future. Give you an inch and you take a mile. You girls are all alike. Next thing he will be offering you a carte blanche. There I go depraving you again. I daresay you think a carte blanche is no more than a little white card.”

“You overestimate the depths of my innocence.”

“Say height rather.”

“Say what you like, you do Mr. Seville an injustice.”

“I wonder. He is trotting after you pretty hard, and his intentions you know…”

“Don’t judge everyone by yourself, Lord Dammler," she shot back angrily.

“Oh, ho, I’ve touched a nerve! This bower of bliss in which you create, I suppose was provided by the Nabob.” He looked around at the vases of flowers, two of which had been put in her study. “When a man starts sending too many flowers it is time to beware. He is up to no good. Next it will be a diamond bracelet, and from there-it is well known no lady can resist diamonds-it is the love nest, and a garish turnout for the park with matched horses. Are you sure you’re not hiding a diamond bracelet up your sleeve?” He grabbed her hand, and looked at her wrist, his eyes narrowed in playful suspicion.

“I see you know the procedure well, milord.”

“I am familiar with the moves of the game, shall we say?”

“By all means, let us talk at cross purposes. We wouldn’t want to sink into too clear an understanding. But you look in the wrong place for diamonds. It was a necklace offered, not a bracelet. Mr. Seville meant to treat me more lavishly than you treat your flirts.”

“You are joking, of course. He wouldn’t dare…"

“His daring knows no bounds. He dared to offer me his hand in marriage.”

“Prudence!” It was a shout of abundant but undefined passion. He looked to see if she joked, but read a contradiction on her face. “You hussy! You didn’t bring the Nabob round your little ink-stained thumb! Good God, how Hettie will stare. So you are an engaged woman, and truly rid of the opprobrious title of Spinster.”

“I do not find it opprobrious, nor am I so anxious to relinquish it as you seem to think I should be.”

“Well, you surely never rejected him?”

“I have not accepted his flattering offer.”

“Prudence, you fool! It would be the making of you.”

“Et tu, Brute.”

“I lag Clarence in my sentiments, I collect? But he’s right, you know. It would be no poor thing for you to be set up so richly for life. I can’t credit it yet that it was marriage he had in his mind. Quite sure you understood the nature of the offer?"

"There is no doubt in my mind, and I find it unflattering that you choose to doubt it.”

“You needn’t rip up at me. It is only what anyone would think.”

“How can you think I should have accepted, if he is so ramshackle?”

“Oh, well, if it was marriage he meant all along, that’s different.”

“You called him a jackrabbit!”

“A very rich jackrabbit. I should have known when he treated you so very properly it wasn’t a left-handed marriage he had in mind. What a feather in your cap. Are you holding out for a title then, or why did you refuse?”

“I don’t love him.”

“Oh love, what is that? Everyone prattles on about it, but I don’t think there is any such thing in the whole world. I never met a man yet who was in love for two days running with the same woman, nor any woman who did much better.”

“Strange talk for the Romancer of the Western World.”

“Romance, that is something quite different. Fiction, in fact, of the sort you and I in our different ways deal in. It’s easy to be in love with a paper character. I adore Shilla-have been in love with her for a week-a new record for me. We can make them into our idealized version of a mate, with the dull and annoying bits left out. We have them at our beck and call, and if we choose to let them run amok a little, we know with the stroke of a pen we can bring them to their senses. What has that to do with love?"

“We don’t see eye to eye on the matter. I conceive of love as something quite different.”

“What?”

“Caring for someone else more than you care for yourself.”

“But that’s not love-it’s a maternal instinct or devotion or some such thing-another form of self-love really. Ourchildren are parts of ourselves. I’m talking about mature love between a man and a woman.”

“So am I.”

“Then you’re talking nonsense, and I expect you know it very well, or you wouldn’t be blushing like a schoolgirl. Never mind, I never did understand women. But I know this, when they talk of love they only want you to take them out to show off to their friends, or to buy them some new jewels or an annuity. They’re after something.”

“If a woman is interested in a man at all, she takes what is offered by him. If those are the terms in which you couch your offers, then you can’t blame a woman for accepting them. For myself, I shouldn’t have thought it had anything to do with love.”

“You’re either a fool or a very wise woman, I don’t know which. In any case, your Seville seems to share my opinion on the matter. It was diamonds he offered, was it not?”

“Yes, and they were not accepted. I didn’t mistake them for love.”

“You can’t know so much of the matter as you let on. You never have loved anyone but that jackanapes of a Springer, and you didn’t love him enough to accept him in the long run. I’ll not be bludgeoned into taking lessons in love from a sp-ahem, fellow writer.”

“It wasn’t intended for a lesson, but an opinion. A solicited opinion, I might add.”

“My apologies, ma’am. You have put me firmly in the wrong, as usual. Now shall we proceed to the good news? You put it out of my mind with your conquest of the Nabob. It is a conquest of a different sort for you. A literary conquest.”

“What, have you been to Murray?” She thought a new edition might be required as her books were selling better now.

“No, Murray came to me yesterday, with Dr. Ashington in tow. It is why I had to break our date.”

“Ashington of the Blackwood Magazine? Does he mean to do a piece on your cantos?”

“Yes, but that could not be good news for you. He is doing your books, too. He’s devoting an issue to new young writers. You are to represent the novelist, myself the poet, Sheridan the dramatist though he’s not young any longer, but he’s the best living dramatist they could come up with. Hunt and Hazlitt are running in tandem for the essayist. We’re in good company.”

“Me? But he cannot have heard of me. I am not a serious writer.”

“No more am I, but they mean to make us serious by lionizing us. They’ll be reading philosophy and politics and religion into our stuff till we won’t know what we meant when we scribbled it down. I daresay you’ll turn out to be a cynic when he’s through with you, and here you take yourself for a romantic.”

“And you a moralist, when you think you’re a rake.”

“He wants an introduction. That’s why I am come, to see when it would be convenient to bring him. You have no objection, I take it?”

“I’m thrilled out of my wits. Does he mean to come here?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind. I’ll bring him along and introduce him, then shab off to let him pick your brain in peace. Don’t let him talk to Clarence, he’ll discover your trick and you’ll be revealed for the nasty little baggage you really are.”

“I can’t believe it-Dr. Ashington. What is he like? Is he old?”

“Yes, a dull old stick-too old for you to charm. You’d better count on your considerable powers of conversation, and not your big blue eyes. He has no use for Scott, by the by, and thinks the world of Coleridge and Southey, if you want to butter him up a bit. I can’t see how he reconciles two such different sorts as that last pair, but then if he likes your stuff and mine, he must have catholic tastes. Or more likely Blackwood has urged us on him, to get Ashington out of the past. A classicist by inclination. Just think, Miss Mallow, we’ll be bound up for eternity in one magazine together. Does it appall you? I see you are underwhelmed at the idea, but you’ll have Hunt and Hazlitt to spell you from me. They are both sensible fellows, and Sherry can provide the comic relief. I don’t mean that in any disparaging way; I wish I had half his comic genius.

“I can’t believe it’s true-Dr. Ashington-the Blackwood Magazine-it’s like a dream come true.”

“You had dreams of such conquests, had you? And when you wake up, you can consider having wangled an offer of marriage from the Nabob. No mean feat that. I still can’t believe it. It surprised me more than Ashington’s article. Quite took the wind out of my sails, in fact. Will tomorrow be all right to bring the Doctor along?”

“Yes, any time he likes.”

“Don’t be so available. Impress him with your heavy calendar. We’ll make it the day after tomorrow.”

“No, tomorrow! He might change his mind.”

“You underestimate yourself, but if you like, it will be tomorrow. I’ll drop by Hettie and tell her the news.”

“She’ll never believe I am to be interviewed by Ashington.”

“Ninnyhammer, she’ll never have heard of him. I meant the news about your other victory.”

“Oh, no, I do not mean to tell it around, since I refused him. It would not be at all the thing. I wish you would not tell anyone.”

“Just let me tell Hettie. She won’t tell anyone if I ask her not to.”

“But she prattles-you said so yourself.”

“She can be as discreet as a diplomat when she likes. Why, the stories she could tell about me if she wanted to but she will love to hear it.”

“Very well, but let her know it is a secret.”

“Yes, Miss Prudence. Well now, you’ve turned him down, so we shan’t have any excuse to come serenading you.” Prudence naturally looked mystified at this, and he explained. “Did I not tell you what I did last night? Oakhurst is being married soon, you know, and I was telling him of the custom in Spanish countries of serenading the bride-to-be. The groom hires a group of minstrels and they serenade her under her window. She comes out and throws some flowers at them. We decided to get a band of us together and go serenading Miss Philmont. Had a merry time. Philmonts had us in after for a drink. Oakhurst and some of the others went on to a club, but I went home to work on Shilla. I'm hard at it revising, and didn’t bring her along for you to see today.”

There seemed a certain pointedness in his telling her of his innocent evening’s entertainment, conveyed more by his conscious manner than by the words themselves. “When shall I see her?” she asked.

“I can drop her off with Ashington tomorrow, and perhaps you will be kind enough to scan her over the next day or so. Let me know if she’s too risqué. She is developing a streak of propriety, I'm happy to say. I believe she’s given up Mrs. Radcliffe’s stuff and taken to your novels. She is beginning to talk up marriage to me.”

“To the Mogul?”

“No, she’s got clean away from him and is reforming one of the unholy men in that caravan I told you about. She’s after me to make him a prince in disguise or something. She’ll be wanting a cottage with a picket fence next. I absolutely draw the line at a batch of chickens. Don’t you agree?”

“It doesn’t seem to go with a prince.”

“King George would disagree with you. Made everyone of his princes take a turn cultivating a garden and rearing fowl, but of course they are commoners in disguise as princes. And with that piece of treason I shall leave you.” He laughed and left the room.

Hettie was amused but incredulous at her nephew’s tale that Miss Mallow had brought Seville up to scratch. “No, it cannot be possible. I have heard in a dozen different quarters that he is chasing the Barren Baroness-McFay you know, that doughty old Scots lady who is a baroness in her own right; the title dates from Queen Anne. She has two husbands in the grave already, and never a babe in the basket, which is why they call her the Barren Baroness, of course. With such a wife in his eye, it is easy to understand Seville’s wanting a love o’ life, but he surely never offered marriage to Miss Mallow.”

“Oh, no, an offer in form she tells me. I trust the lady knows the difference.”

“Is it possible you trust too much in her worldliness?”

“She tells me I overestimate her innocence.”

“Does she indeed? Well, she sounds brassy enough, if that is the sort of conversation she carries on. I hadn’t thought her so bold.”

“No, no, she is not bold; just bright and clever. Quite a greenhead, actually.”

“Is she a greenhead, or is she not? You can’t have it both ways, Dammler.”

“She is a strange combination of innocence and worldliness. But in any case she says old Seville always treats her with respect and propriety, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d had in mind to set her up as his mistress. She hardly seems the mistress type, you must confess.”

Lady Melvine sat digesting the matter. “I recall her little joke at the opera-your Maidenhair Phyrne, you recall. Their conversation cannot have been entirely innocent if that is the sort of thing they were discussing. And there was her drawing the line at five bastards at my ball, too. I personally should draw the line much higher, and I do not consider myself naive.”

“That was joking, Hettie. She is always joking-it is her liveliness that leads her on to say things a little out of line sometimes. Well, I do the same myself.”

“And as you, of course, are as innocent as a new-born lamb-voila! It is settled. She is as innocent as Lord Dammler-a minx, in other words. And would have rubbed along very well with Seville. The wonder of it is that she turned him off, if it was marriage he had in mind.”

“She doesn’t love him.”

“If that is her only reason, she has reached a pitch of innocence almost beyond pleasing.”

“It pleases her,” he answered, and from the satisfied look on his face, Hettie thought it seemed to please Dammler pretty well, too.