Devil’s Cub

Devil’s Cub

Georgette Heyer

1932

Chapter I

there was only one occupant of the coach, a gentleman who sprawled very much at his ease, with his legs stretched out before him, and his hands dug deep in the capacious pockets of his greatcoat. While the coach rattled over the cobbled streets of the town, the light from an occasional lantern or flambeau momentarily lit the interior of the vehicle and made a diamond pin or a pair of very large shoe-buckles flash, but since the gentleman lounging in the coach wore his gold-edged hat tilted low over his eyes, his face remained in shadow.

The coach was travelling fast, too fast for safety in a London street, and it soon drew out of the town, past the turnpike, on to Hounslow Heath. A faint moonlight showed the road to the coachman on the box, but so dimly that the groom beside him, who had been restive since the carriage drew out of St. James’s, gasped presently, as though he could no longer keep back the words: “Lord! you’ll overturn us! It’s a wicked pace!”

The only answer vouchsafed was a shrug, and a somewhat derisive laugh. The coach swayed precariously over a rough stretch of ground, and the groom, clutching the seat with both hands, said angrily: “You’re mad! D’you think the devil’s on your heels, man? Doesn’t he care? Or is he drunk?” The backward jerk of his head seemed to indicate that he was speaking of the man inside the coach.

“When you’ve been in his service a week you won’t caD this a wicked pace,” replied the coachman. “When Vidal travels, he travels swift, d’ye see?”

“He’s drunk—three parts asleep!” the groom said.

“Not he.”

Yet the man inside the coach might well have been asleep for all the sign of life he gave. His long body swayed easily with the lurch of the coach, his chin was.sunk in the folds of his cravat, and not even the worst bumps in the road had the effect of making him so much as grasp the strap that swung beside him. His hands remained buried in his pockets, remained so even when a shot rang out and the vehicle came to a plunging standstill. But apparently he was awake, for he raised his head, yawning, and leaning it back against the cushions turned it slightly towards the off-window.

There was a good deal of commotion outside; a rough voice was raised; the coachman was cursing the groom for his tardiness in firing the heavy blunderbuss in his charge; and the horses were kicking and rearing.

Someone rode up to the door of the coach and thrust in the muzzle of a big pistol. The moonlight cast a head in silhouette, and a voice said: “Hand over the pretties, my hearty!”

It did not seem as though the man inside the coach moved, but a gun spoke sharply, and a stabbing point of flame flashed in the darkness. The head and shoulders at the window vanished; there was the sound of a fall, of trampling hooves, of a startled shout, and the belated explosion of the blunderbuss.

The man in the coach drew his right hand out of his pocket at last. There was an elegant silver-mounted pistol in it, still smoking. The gentleman threw it on to the seat beside him, and crushed the charred and smouldering portion of his greatcoat between very long white fingers.

The door of the coach was pulled open, and the coachman Jumped up on to the hastily let-down step. The lantern he held lit up the interior, and shone full into the face of the lounging man. It was a surprisingly young face, dark and extremely handsome, the curious vividness overlaid by an expression of restless boredom.

“Well?” said the gentleman coldly.

“Highwaymen, my lord. The new man being unused, so to say, to such doings, was late with the blunderbuss. There was three of them. They’ve made off—two of them, that is.”

“Well?” said the gentleman again.

The coachman seemed rather discomposed. “You’ve killed the other, my lord.”

“Certainly,” said the gentleman. “But I presume you bave not opened the door to inform me of that.”

“Well, my lord—shan’t we—do I—his brains are lying in the road, my lord. Do we leave him—like that?”

“My good fellow, are you suggesting that I should carry a footpad’s corpse to my Lady Montacute’s drum?”

“No, my lord,” the coachman said hesitatingly. “Then—then—shall I drive on?”

“Of course drive on,” said the gentleman, faintly surprised.

“Very good, my lord,” the coachman said, and shut the door.

The groom on the box was still clasping the blunderbuss, and staring fascinated at the tumbled figure in the road. When the coachman climbed up on to the box again, and gathered the reins in his hands, he said: “Gawd, ain’t you going to do anything?”

“There isn’t anything you can do for him,” replied the other grimly.

“His head’s almost shot off!” shuddered the groom.

The equipage began to move forward. “Hold your tongue, can’t you? He’s dead, and that’s all there is to it.”

The groom licked his dry lips. “But don’t his lordship know?”

“Of course he knows. He don’t make mistakes, not with the pistols.”

The groom drew a deep breath, thinking still of the dead man left to wallow in his blood. “How old is he?” he blurted out presently.

“Twenty-four all but a month or two.”

“Twenty-four! and shoots his man and leaves the corpse as cool as you pleasel My Gawd!”

He did not speak again until the coach had arrived at its destination, and then he seemed to be so lost in meditation that the coachman had to nudge him sharply. He roused himself then and jumped off the box to open the coach door. As his master stepped languidly down, he looked covertly at him, trying to see some sign of agitation in his face. There was none. His lordship sauntered up the steps to the stone porch, and passed into the lighted hall.

“My Gawd!” said the groom again.

Inside the house two lackeys hovered about the late-comer to take his hat and coat. There was another gentleman in the hall, just about to go up the wide stairway to the saloon. He was good-looking in a rather florid style, with very heavily-arched brows and a roving eye. His dress proclaimed the Macaroni, for he wore a short coat decorated with frog-buttons, fine striped breeches with bunches of strings at the knee, and a waistcoat hardly reaching below the waist. The frills of his shirt front stuck out at the top, and instead of the cravat, he displayed a very full handkerchief tied in a bow under his chin. On his head he wore an amazingly tall ladder-toupet, dusted with blue hair powder, and he carried in his hand a long tasselled cane.

He turned as my lord entered, and when he saw who it was, came across the hall. “I hoped I was the last,” he complained. He raised his quizzing-glass, and through it peered at the hole in his lordship’s coat “My dear Vidal!” he said, shocked. “My dear fellow! Ecod, my lord, your coat!”

One of the lackeys had it over his arm. My lord shook out his Dresden ruffles, but carelessly as though it mattered very little to him to be point-de-vice. “Well, Charles, what of my coat?” he asked.

Mr. Fox achieved a shudder. “There’s a damned hole in it, Vidal,” he protested. He moved forward and very gingerly lifted a fold of the garment “And a damned smell of powder, Vidal,” he said. “You’ve been shooting someone.”

His lordship leaned against the bannister, and opened his snuff-box. “Some scum of a footpad only,” he said.

Mr. Fox abandoned his affectations for the moment. “Kill him, Dominic?”

“Of course,” said my lord.

Mr. Fox grinned. “What have you done with the corpse, my boy?”

“Done with it?” said his lordship with a touch of impatience. “Nothing. What should I do with a corpse?”

Mr. Fox rubbed his chin. “Devil take me if I know,” he said after some thought. “But you can’t leave a corpse on the road, Dominic. People might see it on the way back to town. Ladies won’t like it”

His lordship had raised a pinch of snuff to one classic nostril, but he paused before he sniffed. “I hadn’t thought of that” he admitted. A gleam, possibly of amusement, stole into his eyes. He glanced at the lackey who still held his damaged greatcoat. “There is a corpse somewhere on the road to town. Mr. Fox does not wish it there. Remove it.”

The lackey was far too well trained to display emotion, but he was a little shaken. “Yes, my lord,” he said. “What does your lordship want done with it, if you please?”

“I have no idea,” said his lordship. “Charles, what do you want done with it?”

“Egad, what is to be done with a corpse in the middle of Hounslow Heath?” demanded Mr. Fox. “I’ve a notion it should be delivered to a constable.”

“You hear,” said his lordship. “The corpse must be conveyed to town.”

“Bow Street,” interjected Mr. Fox.

“To Bow Street—with the compliments of Mr. Fox.”

“No, damme, I don’t take the credit for it, Dominic. Compliments of the Marquis of Vidal, my man.”

The lackey swallowed something in his throat, and said with a palpable effort: “It shall be attended to, sir.”

Mr. Fox looked at the Marquis. “I don’t see what else we can do, Dominic, do you?”

“We seem to have been put to a vast deal of inconvenience already,” replied the Marquis, dusting his sleeve with a very fine handkerchief. “I do not propose to bother my head further in the matter.”

“Then we may as well go upstairs,” said Mr. Fox.

“I await your pleasure, my dear Charles,” returned his lordship, and began leisurely to mount the shallow stairs.

Mr. Fox fell in beside him, drawing an elegant brisé fan from his pocket. He opened it carefully, and held it for his friend to see. “Vernis Martin,” he said.

His lordship glanced casually down at it. “Very pretty,” he replied. “Chassereau, I suppose.”

“Quite right,” Mr. Fox said, waving it gently to and fro. “Subject, Télémaque, on ivory.”

They passed round the bend in the stairway. Down in the hall the two lackeys looked at one another. “Corpses one moment, fans the next,” said the man who held Vidal’s coat. “There’s the Quality for you!”

The episode of the corpse had by this time apparently faded from Lord Vidal’s mind, but Mr. Fox, thinking it a very good tale, spoke of it to at least three people, who repeated it to others. It came in due course to the ears of Lady Fanny Marling, who, in company with her son John, and her daughter Juliana, was present at the drum.

Lady Fanny had been a widow for a number of years, and the polite world had ceased to predict a second marriage for her. Flighty she had always been, but her affection for the late Mr. Edward Marling had been a very real thing. Her period of mourning had lasted a full year, and when she reappeared in society it was quite a long time before she had spirits to amuse herself with even the mildest flirtation. Now, with a daughter of marriageable age, she was becoming quite matronly, and had taken to arraying herself in purples and greys, and to wearing on her exceedingly elaborate coiffure turbans that spoke the dowager.

She was talking to an old friend, one Hugh Davenant, when she overheard the story of her nephew’s latest exploit, and she at once broke off her own conversation to exclaim: “That abominable boy! I vow and declare I never go anywhere but what I hear of him. And never any good, Hugh. Never!”

Hugh Davenant’s grey eyes travelled across the room to where the Marquis was standing, and dwelled rather thoughtfully on that arrogant figure. He did not say anything for a moment, and Lady Fanny rattled on.

“I am sure I have not the least objection to him shooting a highwayman—my dear Hugh, do but look at that odd gown! What a figure of fun—oh, it is Lady Mary Coke! Well, small wonder. She never could dress, and really she is become so strange of late, people say she is growing absolutely English, Yes, Hugh, I heard it from Mr. Walpole, and he vowed she was mad—what was I saying? Vidal! Oh, yes, well, if he must shoot highwaymen, it’s very well, but to leave the poor man dead on the road—though I make no doubt he would have done the same to Vidal, for I believe they are horridly callous, these fellows—but that’s neither here nor there. Vidal had no right to leave him. Now people will say that he is wickedly blood-thirsty, or something disagreeable, and it is quite true, only one does not want the whole world to say so.” She drew a long breath. “And Léonie,” she said—“and yon know, Hugh, I am very fond of dear Léonie—Léonie will laugh, and say that her méchant Dominique is dreadfully thoughtless. Thoughtless!”

Davenant smiled. “I make no doubt she will,” he agreed. “I sometimes think that the Duchess of Avon will always remain, at heart—Léon, a page.”

“Hugh, do I beseech you, have a care! You do not know who may overhear you. As for Avon, I truly think he does not care at all what happens to Dominic.”

“After all,” Hugh said slowly, “Dominic is so very like him,”

Lady Fanny shut her fan with a snap. “If you are minded to be unkind about my poor Avon, Hugh, I warn you I shall not listen. Lud, I’m sure he has been a perfect paragon ever since he married Léonie. I know he is monstrous disagreeable, and no one was ever more provoking, unless it be Rupert, who, by the way, encourages Dominic in every sort of excess, just as one would expect—but I’ll stake my reputation Avon was never such a—yes, Hugh, such a devil as Vidal. Why, they call him Devil’s Cub! And if you are going to tell me that is because he is Avon’s son, all I can say is that you are in a very teasing mood, and it’s no such thing.”

“He is very young, Fanny,” Hugh said, still watching the Marquis across the room.

“That makes it worse,” declared her ladyship. “Oh, my dear Lady Dawlish, I wondered whether I should see you to-night! I protest, it’s an age since I had a talk with you .... Odious woman, and as for her daughter, you may say what you choose, Hugh, but the girl squints! Where was I? Oh, Vidal, of course! Young? Yes, Hugh, I marvel that you should find that an excuse for him. The poor Hollands had trouble enough with their son, not but what I consider Holland was entirely to blame—but I never heard that Charles Fox ever did anything worse than lose a fortune at gaming, which is a thing no one could blame in him. It is very different with Vidal. From the day he left Eton he has been outrageous, and I make no doubt he was so in the nursery. It is not only his duels, Hugh—my dear, do you know he is considered positively deadly with the pistols? John tells me they say in the clubs that it makes no odds to the Devil’s Cub whether he is drunk or sober, he can still pick out a playing card on the wall. He did that at White’s once, and there was the most horrid scandal, for of course he was in his cups, and only fancy, Hugh, how angry all the people like old Queensberry and Mr. Walpole must have been! I wish I had seen it!”

“I did see it,” said Hugh. “A silly boy’s trick, no more.”

“I dare say, but it was no boy’s trick to kill young Ffolliot. A pretty to-do there was over that. But as I say, it is not only his duels. He plays high—well, so do we all, and he is a true Alastair—and he drinks too much. No one ever saw Avon in his cups that I ever heard of, Hugh. And worse—worse than all—” she stopped and made a gesture with her fan.

“Opera dancers,” she said darkly.

Davenant smiled. “Well, Fanny, I deplore it as much as you do, but I believe you cannot say that no one ever saw Avon—”

He was interrupted. “I am very fond of Justin,” said Lady Fanny tartly, “but I never pretended to approve of his conduct. And with all his faults Justin was ever bon ton. It is no such thing with Vidal. If he were my son, I should never have consented to let him live anywhere but under my roof. My own dear John scarce leaves my side.”

Hugh bowed. “I know you are very fortunate in your son, Fanny,” he said.

She sighed. “Indeed, he is prodigiously like his poor papa.”

Hugh made no reply to this but merely bowed again. Knowing her ladyship as he did, he was perfectly well aware that her son’s staid disposition was something of a disappointment to her.

“I am sure,” said Lady Fanny, with a touch of defiance, “that if I heard of my John holding—holding orgies with all the wildest young rakes in town I should die of mortification.”

He frowned. “Orgies, Fanny?”

“Orgies, Hugh. Pray do not ask more.” Davenant had heard a good many stories concerning the doings of Vidal’s particular set, and bearing in mind what these stories were, he was somewhat surprised that they should have come to Lady Fanny’s ears. From her expression of outraged virtue he inferred that she really had heard some of the worst tales. He wondered whether John Marling had been her informant, and reflected that in spite of his excesses one could not but like the Marquis better than his impeccable cousin.

At that moment Mr. John Marling came across the room towards his mother. He was a good-looking young man of rather stocky build, dressed very neatly in Spanish-brown velvet. He was in his thirtieth year, but the staidness of his demeanour made him appear older. He greeted Davenant with a bow and a grave smile, and had begun to inquire politely after the older man’s health, when his mother interrupted him.

“Pray, John, where is your sister? I was put out to see that young Comyn was present here to-night I do trust you have not let her slip off with him?”

“No,” John said. “She is with Vidal.”

“Oh!” A curiously thoughtful expression came into her ladyship’s face. “Well, I make no doubt they were glad to see each other.”

“I don’t know,” John said painstakingly. “Juliana cried out: `Why, my dear Dominic, you here?’ or some such thing, and Vidal said: ‘Good God! Have I stumbled on a family gathering?’”

“That is just his way,” Lady Fanny assured him. She turned her limpid gaze upon Davenant. “Vidal has a great kindness for his cousin, you know, Hugh.”

Davenant did not know it, but he was perfectly well aware of Lady Fanny’s ambition. Whatever might be the imperfections of Vidal’s character, he was one of the biggest prizes on the matrimonial market, and for years her ladyship had cherished hopes which she fondly believed to be secret.

John seemed disposed to argue the matter. “For my part I do not believe that Vidal cares a fig for Juliana,” he said. “And as for her, I very much fear this Frederick Comyn has taken her fancy to an alarming degree.”

“How can you be so teasing, John?” Fanny demanded petulantly. “You know very well she is nothing but a child, and I am sure no thought of—of marriage, or love, or any such folly has entered her head. And if it had, it is no great matter, and when she has been in Paris a week, she will have forgotten the young man’s very existence.”

“Paris?” said Hugh, foreseeing that John was going to try and convince his mother for her own good. “Is Juliana going to Paris?”

“Why yes, Hugh. Have you forgotten that my dear mamma was a Frenchwoman? I am sure it is no matter for wonder that the child should visit her French relatives. They are quite wild to know her, so John is to take her next week. I don’t doubt they will make so much rout with her she will hardly wish to come home again.”

“But I do not feel at all hopeful that it win answer the purpose,” said John heavily.

“Pray, John, do not be so provoking!” implored Lady Fanny, somewhat tartly. “You make it sound as though I were one of those odious scheming females whom I detest.”

Hugh thought it time to withdraw, and tactfully did so, leaving mother and son to argue in comfort.

Meanwhile, Miss Juliana Marling, a charming blonde dressed in blue lustring with spangled shoes, and her curls arranged a la Gorgonne, had dragged her cousin into one of the adjoining saloons. “You are the very person I wished to see!” she informed him.

The Marquis said with conspicuous lack of gallantry: “If you want me to do something for you, Juliana, I warn you I never do anything for anybody.”

Miss Marling opened her blue eyes very wide. “Not even for me, Dominic?” she said soulfully.

His lordship remained unmoved. “No,” he replied.

Miss Marling sighed and shook her head. “You are horridly disobliging, you know. It quite decides me not to marry you.”

“I hoped it might,” said his lordship calmly.

Miss Marling made an effort to look affronted, but only succeeded in giggling. “You needn’t be afraid. I am going to marry someone quite different,” she said.

His lordship evinced signs of faint interest at that “Are you?” he inquired. “Does my aunt know?”

“You may be very wicked, and quite hatefully rude,” said Miss Marling, “but I will say one thing for you, Dominic: you do not need to have things explained to you like John. Mamma does not mean me to marry him, and that is why I am to be packed off to France next week.”

“Who is ‘he?’ Ought I to know?” inquired the Marquis.

“I don’t suppose you know him. He is not at all the sort of person who would know your set,” said Miss Marling severely.

“Ah, then I was right,” retorted my lord. “You are contemplating a mesalliance.”

Miss Marling stiffened in every line of her small figure. “It’s no such thing! He may not be a brilliant match, or have a title, but all the men I have met who are brilliant matches are just like you, and would make the most horrid husbands.”

“You may as well let me know the worst,” said my lord. “H you think it would annoy Aunt Fanny, I’ll do what I can for you.”

She clasped both hands on his arm. “Dear, dear Dominic! I knew you would! It is Frederick Comyn.”

“And who,” said the Marquis, “might he be?”

“He comes from Gloucestershire—or is it Somerset? Well, it doesn’t signify—and his papa is Sir Malcolm Comyn, and it is all perfectly respectable, as dear Aunt Léonie would say, for they have always lived there, and there is an estate, though not very large, I believe, and Frederick is the eldest son, and he was at Cambridge, and this is his first stay in town, and Lord Carlisle is his sponsor, so you see it is not a mesalliance at all.”

“I don’t,” said his lordship. “You may as well give up the notion, my dear. They’ll never let you throw yourself away on this nobody.”

“Dominic,” said Miss Marling with dangerous quiet.

My lord looked lazily down at her.

“I just want you to know that my mind is made up,” she said, giving him back look for look. “So that it is no use to talk to me like that.”

“Very well,” said my lord.

“And you will make a push to help us, won’t you, dearest Dominic?”

“Oh certainly, child. I will tell Aunt Fanny that the alliance has my full approval.”

“You are quite abominable,” said his cousin. “I know you dislike of all things to bestir yourself, but recollect, my lord, if once I am wed you need not be afraid any more that mamma will make you marry me.”

“I am not in the least afraid of that,” replied his lordship.

“I declare it would serve you right if I did marry you!” cried Miss Marling indignantly. “You are being quite atrocious and all I want you to do is to write a letter to Tante Elisabeth in Paris!”

His lordship’s attention seemed to have wandered, but at this he brought his gaze back from the contemplation of a ripe blonde who was trying to appear unconscious of his scrutiny, and looked down into Miss Marling’s face.

“Why?” he asked.

“If s perfectly plain, Dominic, I should have thought. Tante Elisabeth so dotes on you she win do whatever you wish, and if you were to solicit her kindness for a friend of yours about to make his debut in Paris “

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said the Marquis. “Much good will a letter from me avail you if my respected Aunt Fanny has already warned Tante against your nobody.”

“She won’t do that,” Miss Marling replied confidently. “And he is not a nobody. She has no notion, you see, that Frederick means to follow me to Paris. So you will write, will you not, Dominic?”

“No, certainly not,” said my lord. “I’ve never set eyes on the fellow.”

“I knew you would say something disagreeable like that,” said Miss Marling, unperturbed. “So I told Frederick to be ready.” She turned her head and made a gesture with her fan, rather in the manner of a sorceress about to conjure up visions. In response to the signal a young man who had been watching her anxiously disengaged himself from a knot of persons near the door, and came towards her.

He was not so tall as Vidal, and of a very different ton. From his moderate-sized pigeon’s-wing wig to his low-heeled black shoes, there did not seem to be a hair or a pin out of place. His dress was in the mode, but not designed to attract attention. He wore Lunardi lace at his throat and wrists, and a black solitaire adorned his cravat Such usual adjuncts to •a gentleman’s costume as quizzing-glass, fobs, and watches, he had altogether dispensed with, but he had a snuff-box in one hand, and wore a cameo-ring on one finger.

The Marquis watched his approach through his quizzing-glass. “Lord!” he said. “What’s the matter with you Ju?”

Miss Marling chose to ignore this. She sprang up as Mr. Comyn reached them, and laid her hand on his arm. “Frederick, I have told my cousin all!” she said dramatically. “This is my cousin, by the way. I dare say you know of him. He is very wicked and kills people in duels. Vidal, this is Frederick.”

His lordship had risen. “You talk too much, Juliana,” he drawled. His dark eyes held a distinct menace, but his cousin remained unabashed. He exchanged bows with Mr. Comyn. “Sir, your most obedient.”

Mr. Comyn, who had blushed at his Juliana’s introduction, said that he was honoured.

“Vidal is going going to write to my French aunt about you,” stated Miss Marling blithely. “She is really the only person in the family who is not shocked by him. Except me, of course.”

The Marquis caught her eye once more. Knowing that dangerous look of old, Miss Marling capitulated. “I won’t say another word,” she promised. “And you will write, will you not, dear Dominic?”

Mr. Comyn said in his grave young voice: “I think my Lord Vidal must require to know my credentials. My lord, though I am aware that I must sound like a mere adventurer, I can assure you it is no such thing. My family is well known in the West of England, and my Lord Carlisle will speak for me at need.”

“Good God, sir! I’m not the girl’s guardian!” said his lordship. “You had better address all this to her brother.”

Mr. Comyn and Miss Marling exchanged rueful glances.

“Mr. Marling and Lady Fanny can hardly be unaware of my estate, sir, but—but in short I cannot flatter myself that they look upon my suit with any favour.”

“Of course they don’t,’’ agreed the Marquis. “You’ll have to elope with her.”

Mr. Comyn looked extremely taken aback. “Elope, my lord!” he said.

“Or give the chit up,” replied his lordship.

“My lord,” said Mr. Comyn earnestly, “I ask you to believe that in journeying to Paris, I have no such impropriety in mind. It was always my father’s intention that I should visit France. Miss Marling’s going there but puts my own journey forward.”

“Yes,” said Juliana thoughtfully, “but for all that I’m not sure it wouldn’t be a very good thing to do, Frederick. I must say, Vidal, you do take some prodigious clever notions into your head! I wonder I did not think of it myself.”

Mr. Comyn regarded her with a hint of sternness in his frank gaze, “Juliana—madam! You could not suppose that I would steal you away clandestinely? His lordship was jesting.”

“Oh no, indeed he wasn’t. It is just the kind of thing he would do himself. It is no good being proper and respectable, Frederick; we may be forced to elope in the end. Unless

—” She paused, and looked doubtfully up at Vidal. “You don’t suppose, do you, Dominic, that my Uncle Justin could be induced to speak for us to mamma?”

My lord answered this without hesitation. “Don’t be a fool, Ju.”

She sighed. “No, I was afraid he would not. It is a vast pity, for mamma always does what Uncle Justin says.” She caught sight of a stocky .figure at the far end of the room. “There’s John! You had best go away, Frederick, for it will not do at all for John to see you talking to my cousin.”

She watched him bow, and retreat, and turned enthusiastically to the Marquis. “Is he not a delightful creature, Vidal?” she demanded.

My lord looked at her frowningly. “Juliana,” he said, “do I understand that you prefer him as a husband to myself?”

“Infinitely,” Miss Marling assured him.

“You have very bad taste, my girl,” said my lord calmly.

“Indeed, cousin! And may I ask whether you prefer that yellow-haired chit I saw you with at Vauxhall as a wife to me?” retorted Juliana.

“Ill-judged, my dear. I do not contemplate marriage either with her or you. Nor am I at all certain which yellow-haired chit you mean.”

Miss Marling prepared to depart. She swept a dignified curtsey, and said: “I do not mix with the company you keep, dear cousin, so I cannot tell you her name.”

The Marquis bowed gracefully. “I still live, dear Juliana.”

“You are shameless and provoking,” Miss Marling said crossly and left him.

Chapter II

in the sunny withdrawing-room which overlooked the street sat the Duchess of Avon, listening to her sister-in-law, Lady Fanny Marling, who had called to pay her a morning visit, and to talk over the week’s doings over a cup of chocolate and little sweet biscuits.

Lady Fanny no longer looked her best in the crude light of day, but her grace, though turned forty now, still retained a youthful bloom in her cheeks, and had no need at all to shrink from the sunlight. Lady Fanny, who had taken care to seat herself with her back to the window, could not help feeling slightly resentful. There really seemed to be so little difference between her grace, and the boy-girl whom Avon had brought to England twenty-four years ago. Léonie’s figure was as slim as ever, her Titian hair, worn just now en négligé, was untouched by grey, and her eyes, those great dark-blue eyes which had first attracted the Duke, held all their old sparkle. Twenty-four years of marriage had given her dignity—when she chose to assume it, and much feminine wisdom, which she had lacked in the old days, but no wifely or motherly responsibility, no weight of honours, of social eminence had succeeded in subduing the gamin spirit in her. Lady Fanny considered her far too impulsive, but since she was, at the bottom of her somewhat shallow heart, very fond of her sister-in-law, she admitted that Léonie’s impetuosity only added to her charm.

To-day, however, she was in no mood to admire the Duchess. Life was proving itself a tiresome business, full of unpaid bills, and undutiful daughters. Vaguely it annoyed her that Léonie (who had a thoroughly unsatisfactory son if only she could be brought to realize it) should look so carefree.

“I vow,” she said rather sharply, “I do not know why we poor creatures slave and fret our lives out for our children, for they are all ungrateful and provoking and only want to disgrace one.”

Léonie wrinkled her brow at that. “I do not think,” she said seriously, “that John would ever want to disgrace you, Fanny.”

“Oh, I was not talking of John!” said her ladyship. “Sons are another matter, though to be sure I should not say so to you, for you have trouble enough with poor dear Dominic, and indeed I wonder how it is he has not turned your hair white with worry already, and young as he is.”

“I do not have trouble with Dominique,” said Léonie flatly. “I find him fort amusant.”

“Then I trust you will find his latest exploit fort amusant,” said Lady Fanny tartly. “I make no doubt he will break his neck over it, for what must he do at the drum last night but wager young Crossly—as mad a rake as ever I set eyes on, and I should be prodigious sorry to see my son in his company—that he would drive his curricle from London to Newmarket in four hours. Five hundred guineas on it, so I heard—play or pay!”

“He drives very well,” Léonie said hopefully. “I do not think that he will break his neck, but you are quite right, tout même, Fanny: it makes one very anxious.”

“And not content with making absurd wagers, which of course he must lose—”

“He will not lose,” cried her grace indignantly. “And if you like I will lay you a wager that he will win!”

“Lord, my dear, I don’t know what you would have me stake,” said Lady Fanny, forgetting the main issue for the moment. “It’s very well for you with all the pin money and the jewels Avon gives you, but I give you my word I expect to find myself at any moment in that horrid place Rupert used to be clapped up in. If you can believe it I’ve not won once at loo this past month or at silver-pharaoh, and as for whist, I vow and declare to you I wish the game had never been thought of. But that’s neither here nor there, and at least I have not to stand by and watch my only son make himself the talk of the town with his bets and his highwaymen, and I don’t know what more beside.”

Léonie looked interested at this. “But tell!” she commanded. “What highwayman?’

“Oh, it was nothing but just to match the rest of his conduct. He shot one last night on Hounslow Heath, and must needs leave the body upon the road.”

“He is a very good shot,” Léonie said. “For me, I like best to fight with swords, and so does Monseigneur, but Dominique chooses pistols.”

Lady Fanny almost stamped her foot. “I declare you are as incorrigible as that worthless boy himself!” she cried. “It’s very well for the world to call Dominic Devil’s Cub, and place all his wildness at poor Avon’s door, but for my part I find him very like his mamma.”

Léonie was delighted. “Voyons, that pleases me very much!” she said. “Do you really think so?”

What Fanny might have been goaded to reply to this was checked by the quiet opening of the door behind her. She had no need to turn her head to see who had come in, for Léonie’s face told her.

A soft voice spoke. “Ah, my dear Fanny,” it said, “lamenting my son’s wickedness as usual, I perceive.”

“Monseigneur, Dominique has shot a highwayman!” Léonie said, before Fanny had time to speak.

His Grace of Avon came slowly to the fire, and stretched one thin white hand to the blaze. He carried an ebony stick, but it was noticeable that he leaned on it but slightly. He was still very upright, and only his lined face showed his age. He wore a suit of black velvet with silver lacing, and his wig, which was curled in the latest French fashion, was thickly powdered. His eyes held all their old mockery, and mockery sounded in his voice as he answered: “Very proper.”

“And left the body to rot on the road!” snapped Lady Fanny.

His grace’s delicate brows rose. “I appreciate your indignation, my dear. An untidy ending.”

“But not at all, Monseigneur!” Léonie said practically. “I do not see that a corpse is of any use at all.”

“La, child, will you never lose those callous notions of yours?” demanded Fanny. “It might be Vidal himself speaking! All he would say was that ne could not bring a corpse to the drum. Yes, Avon; that is positively the only excuse he gave for his inhuman conduct.”

“I did not know that Vidal had so much proper feeling,”

remarked his grace. He moved towards a chair and sat down. “Doubtless you had some other reason for visiting us today—other than to mourn Vidal’s exploits.”

“Of course, I might have known you would uphold him, just to be disagreeable,” said Lady Fanny crossly.

“I never uphold Vidal—even to be disagreeable,” replied his grace.

“Indeed, and I cannot conceive how you should. I was only saying to Léonie when you came in that I have never seen my son in such scrapes as he is always in. I do not believe John has ever caused me one moment’s anxiety in all his life.”

The Duke opened his snuff-box—a plain gold case delicately painted en grisaille by Degault and protected by cristal de roche. “I can do nothing about it, my dear Fanny,” he said. “Recollect that you wanted to marry Edward.”

Under her rouge additional and quite natural colour rose in Fanny’s cheeks. “I won’t hear one word against my sainted Edward!” she said, her voice quivering a little. “And if you mean that John is like his dear father, I am sure I am thankful for it”

Léonie interposed hurriedly. “Monseigneur did not mean anything like that, did you, Monseigneur? And me, I was always very fond of Edward. And certainly John is like him, which is a good thing, just as Juliana is very like you, only not, I think, as pretty as you were.”

“Oh my dear, do you say so indeed?” Lady Fanny’s angry flush died down. “You flatter me, but I believe I was accounted something of a beauty in my young days, was I not, Justin? Only I hope I was never so headstrong as Juliana, who is likely to ruin everything by her stupid behaviour.” She turned to Avon. “Justin, it is too provoking! The foolish chit has taken a fancy to the veriest nobody, and I am forced—yes, forced to pack her off to France till she has got over it.”

Léonie at once pricked up her ears. “Oh, is Juliana in love? But who is he?”

“Pray do not put such an idea into her head!” besought Lady Fanny. “It’s no such matter, Fll be bound. Lord, if I

had married the first man whom I fancied I loved—!

It’s nothing but a silly girl’s first affair, but she is such a headstrong child I vow I do not know what she will be at next. So off she goes to France. John is to take her.”

“Who,” inquired his grace languidly, “is the nobody?”

“Oh, no one of account, my dear Justin. Some country squire’s son whom young Carlisle is sponsoring.”

“Is he nice?” Léonie asked.

“I dare say, my love, but that’s nothing to the point. I have other plans for Juliana.” She gave her laces a little shake, and went on airily: “I am sure we have spoken of it often enough, you and I, and I cannot help feeling that it would be a charming match, besides fulfilling my dearest wish. And I have always thought them remarkably well suited, and I make no doubt at all that everything would have been on the road to being settled by now had Juliana not taken it into her head to flout me in this way, though to be sure, I do not in the least blame her for appearing cold to him, for it is no more than he deserves.”

She paused for breath, and shot a look at Avon out of the corners of her eyes. He was quite unperturbed; a faint smile hovered over his thin lips, and he regarded his sister with an air of cynical amusement “I find your conversation somewhat difficult to follow, my dear Fanny,” he said. “Pray enlighten me.”

Lady Fanny said shrewdly: “Indeed, and I think you follow me very well, Justin.”

“But I don’t,” Léonie said. “Who deserves that Juliana should be cold? It is not the poor nobody?”

“Of course not!” replied her ladyship impatiently. She seemed strangely loth to explain herself. Léonie glanced inquiringly at the Duke.

He had opened his snuff-box again, and held a pinch to one nostril before he spoke. “I apprehend, my love, that Fanny is referring to your son.”

A blank look came into Léonie’s face. “Dominique? But

—” She stopped and looked at Fanny. “No,” she said flatly.

Lady Fanny was hardly prepared for anything so downright “Lord, my dear, what can you mean?”

“I do not at all want Dominique to marry Juliana,” Léonie explained.

“Perhaps,” said Lady Fanny, sitting very erect in her chair, “you will be good enough to explain what that signifies.”

“I am sorry if I seemed rude,” Léonie apologized. “Did I, Monseigneur?”

“Very,” he answered, shutting his snuff-box with an expert flick of the finger, “But, unlike Fanny, beautifully frank.”

“Well, I am sorry,” she repeated. “It is not that I do not like Juliana, but I do not think it would amuse Dominic to marry her.”

“Amuse him!” Fanny turned with pardonable exasperation to her brother. “If that is all—! Have you also forgotten the plans we made, Avon, years back?”

“Acquit me, Fanny. I never make plans.”

Léonie interrupted a heated rejoinder to say: “It is true, Fanny: we did say Dominique should marry Juliana. Not Monseigneur, but you and I. But they were babies, and me, I think it is all quite different now.”

“What is different, pray?” demanded her ladyship.

Léonie reflected. “Well, Dominique is,” she replied naively. “He is not enough respectable for Juliana.”

“Lord, child, do you look to see him bring home one of his opera dancers on his arm?” Lady Fanny said with a shrill little laugh.

From a doorway a cool, faintly insolent voice spoke. “My good aunt interests herself in my affairs, I infer.” The Marquis of Vidal came into the room, his chapeau-bras under his arm, the wings of his riding coat clipped back, French fashion, and top boots on his feet There was a sparkle in his eyes, but he bowed with great politeness to his aunt, and went towards the Duchess.

She flew out of her chair. “Ah, my little one! Voyons, this makes me very happy!”

He put his arms round her. The red light went out of his eyes, and a softer look transformed his face. “‘My dear and only love,’ I give you good morrow,” he said. He shot a glance of mockery at his aunt, and took both Léonie’s hands in his. “‘My dear—and—only—love,’” he repeated maliciously, and kissed her fingers.

The Duchess gave a little crow of laughter. “Truly?” she inquired.

Fanny saw him smile into her eyes, a smile he kept for her alone. “Oh, quite, my dear!” he said negligently. Upon which my lady arose with an angry flounce of her armazine skirts, and announced that it was time she took her leave of them.

Léonie pressed her son’s hand coaxingly. “Dominique, you will escort your aunt to her carriage, will you not?”

“With the greatest pleasure on earth, madam,” he replied with promptitude, and offered his arm to the outraged lady.

She made her adieux stiffly, and went out with him. Haft-way down the stairs her air of offended dignity deserted her. To be sure the boy was so very handsome, and she had ever a soft corner for a rake. She stole a glance at his profile, and suddenly laughed. “I declare you’re as disdainful as Avon,” she remarked. “But you need not be so cross, even if I do interest myself in your affairs.” She tapped his arm with her gloved hand. “You know, Dominic, I have a great fondness for you.”

The Marquis looked down at her rather enigmatically. I shall strive to deserve your regard, ma’am,” he said.

“Shall you, my dear?” Lady Fanny’s tone was dry. “I wonder! Well, there’s no use denying I had hoped you would have made me happy, you and Juliana.”

“Console yourself, dear aunt, with the reflection that I shall cause neither you nor Juliana unhappiness.”

“Why, what do you mean?” she asked.

He laughed. “I should make a devil of a husband, aunt.”

“I believe you would,” she said slowly. “But—well, never mind.” They had come to the big door that gave on to the street. The porter swung it open and stood waiting. Lady Fanny gave her hand to the Marquis, who kissed it punctiliously. “Yes,” she said. “A devil of a husband. I am sorry for your wife—or I should be if I were a man.” On which obscure utterance she departed.

His lordship went back to the sunny room upstairs.

“I hope you did not engage her, mon petit?” Léonie said anxiously.

“Far from it,” replied the Marquis. “I think—but she became profound so that I cannot be sure—that she is now glad I am not going to marry my cousin.”

“I told her you would not. I knew you would not like it at all,” Léonie said.

His grace surveyed her blandly. “You put yourself to unnecessary trouble, my love. I cannot conceive that Juliana, who seems to me to have more sense than one would expect to find in a child of Fanny’s, would contemplate marriage with Vidal.”

The Marquis grinned. “As usual, sir, you are right.”

“But I do not think so at all,” objected Léonie. “And if you are right, then I say that Juliana is a little fool, and without any sense at all.”

“She is in love,” answered the Marquis, “with a man called Frederick.”

“Incroyable!” Léonie exclaimed. “Tell me all about him at once. He sounds very disagreeable.”

The Duke looked across the room at his son. “One was led to suppose from Fanny’s somewhat incoherent discourse that the young man is impossible!”

“Oh, quite, sir,” agreed Vidal. “But she’ll have him for all that.”

“Well, if she loves him, I hope she will marry him,” said Léonie, with a bewildering change of front “You do not mind, do you, Monseigneur?”

“It is not, thank God, my affair,” replied his grace. “I am not concerned with the Marlings’ futures.”

The Marquis met his glance squarely. “Very well, sir. The point is taken.”

Avon held out one of his very white hands towards the fire, and regarded through half-closed eyes the big emerald ring he wore. “It is not my custom,” he said smoothly, “to inquire into your affairs, but I have heard talk of a girl who is not an opera dancer.”

The Marquis answered with perfect composure. “But not, I think, talk of my approaching nuptials.”

“Hardly,” said his grace, with a faint lift of the brows.

“Nor will you, sir.”

“You relieve me,” said his grace politely. He got up, leaning lightly on his ebony cane. “Permit me to tell you, my son, that when you trifle with a girl of the bourgeoisie, you run the risk of creating the kind of scandal I deplore.”

A smile flickered across Vidal’s mouth. “Your pardon, sir, but do you speak from your wide experience?”

“Naturally,” said his grace.

“I do not believe,” said Léonie, who had been listening calmly to this interchange, “that you ever trifled with a bourgeoise, Justin.”

“You flatter me, child.” He looked again at his son. “I do not need your assurance that you amuse yourself only. I have no doubt that you will commit almost every indiscretion, but one you will not commit. You are, after all, my son. But I would advise you, Dominic, to amuse yourself with women of a certain class, or with your own kind, who understand how the game should be played.”

The Marquis bowed. “You are a fount of wisdom, sir.”

“Of worldly wisdom, yes,” said his grace. In the doorway he paused and looked back. “Ah, there was another little matter, as I remember. What kind of cattle do you keep in your stables that it must needs take you four hours to reach Newmarket?”

The Marquis’ eye gleamed appreciation, but Léonie was inclined to be indignant. “Monseigneur, I find you fort exi-geant to-day. Four hours! ma foi, but of a surety he will break his neck.”

“It has been done in less,” his grace said tranquilly.

“That I do not at all believe,” stated the Duchess. “Who did it in less?”

“I did,” said Avon.

“Oh, then I do believe it,” said Léonie as a matter of course.

“How long, sir?” the Marquis said swiftly.

“Three hours and forty-seven minutes.”

“Still too generous, sir. Three hours and forty-five minutes should, I think, suffice. You would perhaps, like to lay me odds?”

“Not in the least,” said his grace. “But three hours and forty-five minutes should certainly suffice.”

He went out. Léonie said: “Of course I should like you to beat Monseigneur’s record, my little one, but it is very dangerous. Do not kill yourself, Dominique, please.”

“I won’t,” he answered. “That is a promise, my dear.”

She tucked her hand in his. “Ah, but it is a promise you could break, mon ange.”

“Devil a bit!” said his lordship cheerfully. “Ask my uncle. He will tell you I was born to be hanged.”

“Rupert?” said Léonie scornfully. “Voyons, he would not tell me any such thing, because he would not dare.” She retained her clasp on his hand. “Now you will talk to me a little, mon enfant—tout bas. Who is this bourgeoise?”

The laugh went out of Vidal’s eyes at that, and his black brows drew close together. “Let be, madame. She is nothing. How did my father hear of her?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But this I know, Dominique, you will never be able to hide anything from Monseigneur. And I think he is not quite pleased. It would be better, perhaps, if you did not amuse yourself there.”

“Content you, maman. I can manage my affairs.”

“Well, I hope so,” Léonie said doubtfully. “You are quite sure, I suppose, that this will not lead to a mésalliance?” He looked at her rather sombrely. “You don’t flatter my judgment, madame. Do you think I am so likely to forget what I owe to my name?”

“Yes,” said her grace candidly, “I think, my dear, that when you have the devil in you—which I perfectly understand—

you are likely to forget everything.” He disengaged himself, and stood up. “My devil don’t prompt me to marriage, maman,” he said.

Chapter III

mrs. challoner occupied rooms in a genteel part of the town which might be said to touch the fringe of the more fashionable quarter. She was a widow with a jointure quite inadequate for a lady of her ambition, but she had an additional source of income in her brother, who was a city merchant of considerable affluence. From time to time he paid some of Mrs. Challoner’s more pressing bills, and though he did it with a bad grace, and was consistently discouraged by his wife and daughters, he could always be relied upon to step into the breach before matters reached too serious a pass. He said, grumbling, that he did it for his little Sophy’s sake, for he could not bear to see such a monstrous pretty girl go dressed in the rags Mrs. Challoner assured him she was reduced to. His elder niece awoke no such generous feeling in his breast, but since she never exerted herself to captivate him, and always stated in her calm way that she lacked nothing, this was perhaps not surprising. Though he would naturally never admit it, he stood a little in awe of Mary Challoner. She favoured her father, and Henry Simpkins had never been able to feel at ease with his handsome brother-in-law. Charles Challoner had been reckless and graceless, and his own noble family had, declined having any hiter-course with him after he had committed the crowning in-descretion of marriage with Miss Clara Simpkins. He was indolent and spendthrift, and his morals shocked a decent-living merchant. But for all that he had an air, a faint hauteur of manner that set his wife’s relations at a distance, and kept them there. They might assist materially in the upkeep of his establishment, and he was not above permitting them to rescue him from the Spunging House, whenever he was unfortunate enough to fall a victim to his creditors, but a gentleman of his connections could not be expected to consort on equal terms with (as he neatly phrased it) a bundle of Cits. This easy air of assurance, and a patrician cast of countenance he bequeathed to his elder daughter. Her Uncle Henry found himself ill at ease in her presence, and wished that if his son Joshua must feel it incumbent on him to fall in love with one of his cousins, he would choose the easier and prettier Sophia.

Mrs. Challoner had only the two daughters, and since Mary’s sixteenth birthday her main object in life had been to marry them both suitably as soon as possible. The signal success once achieved by a certain Irish widow put ideas into her head which her brother thought absurd, but though she admitted that Mary, in spite of her grand education, could scarcely hope to achieve more than a respectable alliance, she could not find that either Maria or Elizabeth Gunning in their prime had outshone her own Sophia. It was more than twenty years since the Gunning sisters had taken the town by storm, and Mrs. Challoner could not remember ever to have set eyes on either, but she knew several reliable persons who had, and they all assured her that Sophia far transcended the famous beauties. If Mrs. Gunning, who hadn’t a penny, and was dreadfully Irish as well, could catch an earl and a duke in her matrimonial net, there seemed to be very little reason why Mrs. Challoner, with a respectable jointure, and no common Irish accent, should not do quite as well. Or if not quite, at least half—for she was not besotted about her daughters, and had made up her mind a long time ago that nothing great could be hoped for Mary.

It was not that the girl was ill-favoured. She had a fine pair of grey eyes, and her profile with its delightfully straight nose and short upper lip was quite lovely. But placed beside Sophia she was nothing beyond the common. What chance had chestnut curls when compared to a riot of bright gold ringlets? What chance had cool grey eyes when the most limpid blue ones peeped between preposterously long eyelashes?

She had, moreover, grave disadvantages. Those fine eyes of hers had a disconcertingly direct gaze, and very often twinkled in a manner disturbing to male egotism. She had common-sense too, and what man wanted the plainly matter-of-fact, when he could enjoy instead Sophia’s delicious folly? Worst of all she had been educated at a very select seminary—Mrs. Challoner was sometimes afraid that she was almost a Bluestocking.

The education had been provided by the girl’s paternal relatives, and at one time Mrs. Challoner had expected wonders to come of it. But Mary seemed to have acquired nothing from it but a quantity of useless knowledge, and a certain elegance of deportment The select seminary had housed young ladies of the highest rank, but Mary’s common-sense fell short of making fast-friends with any of them, so that Mrs. Challoner’s visions of entering the Polite World through her daughter’s friendships all vanished, and she was left to wish that she had never applied to the Challoners for help at all. Yet at the time of Charles Challoner’s early demise, it had seemed to her to be an excellent thing to do. Her brother had said that she could hope for nothing from such high and mighty folk, and it certainly seemed now as though she had got worse than nothing. While evincing no desire to set eyes on his late son’s spouse, General Sir Giles Challoner had expressed his willingness to provide for the education of his eldest granddaughter. Mrs. Challoner perforce had accepted this half-loaf, with the secret belief that it would lead to better things. It never had. On several occasions Mary had been bidden on a visit to Buckinghamshire, but no suggestion either of adopting her, or of inviting her mamma and sister to share the visit, had ever been made.

It was bitterly disappointing, but Mrs. Challoner was a just woman, and she had no doubt that the frustration of her ambitions was largely due to Mary herself. For all her wonderful learning, the girl had not the smallest notion of bettering her position. With every opportunity (if only she had known how to be ingratiating) of insinuating herself into the affections of her benefactors, she had apparently made no attempt to be indispensable to them, so that here she was, actually twenty years of age, still sharing the lodging of her mother and sister, and with no better prospect in view than marriage with her cousin Joshua.

Joshua, a stout and affluent young man, was not an earl, but then Mary was not Sophia, and Mrs. Challoner would have been quite satisfied with this match for her elder daughter. Inexplicably Joshua had no eyes for Sophia. He was obstinately and somewhat fiercely in love with Mary, and the mischief was that the stupid girl would have none of him.

“I don’t know what you look for, I’m sure,” Mrs. Challoner said, pardonably incensed. “If you think you will marry a titled gentlemen, let me tell you, Mary, that you have no notion how to go about the business.”

Whereupon Mary had looked up from her stitchery, and said with a humorous inflexion in her calm voice: “Well, mamma, I have plenty of opportunity for learning, haven’t I?”

“If all that fine education of yours taught you was to be odiously sarcastic about your sister, miss, you wasted your time!” said her mother sharply.

Mary bent her head over her work again. “Indeed I think so,” she said.

There was nothing much to be made of this. Mrs. Challoner suspected her daughter of a hidden, and probably unpalatable meaning, but could not resist saying: “And though you may sneer at Sophia now, I wonder how you will look when she is my lady.”

Mary re-threaded her needle. “I think I should look much surprised, mamma,” she replied somewhat drily. Then as Mrs. Challoner began to bridle, she put her work aside, and said in her quiet way: “Madam, surely in your heart you know that Lord Vidal does not dream of marriage?”

“I will tell you what it is, miss!” said her mother with a heightened colour, “you are jealous of your sister’s beauty, and all the suitors she has! Not dream of marriage? Why, what do you know of the matter, pray? Does he take you so deep into his confidence?”

“I do not think,” said Mary, “that Lord Vidal is aware of my existence.”

“I’m sure that’s no wonder,” declared Mrs. Challoner. “You’ve no notion how to make yourself agreeable to a gentleman. But that’s no reason why you should be so prodigious unpleasant about poor Sophia’s chances. If ever I saw a man fall head over ears in love, that one is Lord Vidal. Lord, he’s for ever kicking his heels upon our doorstep, and as for the posies and the trinkets he brings—”

“They had better be given back to him,” said her daughter prosaically. “I tell you that man means no good towards Sophia. Good God, mamma, don’t you know his reputation?”

Mrs. Challoner failed to meet that straight gaze. “Fie, and pray what should you, a chit from the schoolroom, know of a gentleman’s reputation?” she said virtuously. “If he has been something of a rake, that will all be changed when he weds my pretty Sophia.”

“It seems fairly safe to say so,” agreed Mary, picking up her work again. “You choose to be hoodwinked, ma’am, but if you will believe he means honestly by my sister, will you not at least consider how far apart are their fortunes?”

“As to that,” replied Mrs. Challoner, preening herself, “I am sure the Challoners are good enough for anyone. Not that it signifies in the least, for we all know how the Gunnings, who were nobody, married into the nobility.”

“They did us a great disservice thereby,” sighed Mary.

More she would not say, deeming it useless, but it was with deep misgiving that she regarded her sister when that damsel danced in, fresh from an expedition with her bosom friends, the Matchams.

Sophia was just eighteen, and it would have been hard to have found a fault in her appearance. She had the biggest of cornflower-blue eyes, the daintiest of little noses, the softest, most adorable mouth in the world. Her curls, which her mamma nightly brushed for her, were of a gold that had nothing to do with flaxen, and her complexion was of that rose-leaf order that seems too perfect to be natural. She had a frippery brain, but she could dance very prettily, and knew just how to drive a man to desperation, so that it really did not matter in the least that she was amazingly ignorant, and found the mere writing of a letter the most arduous task.

Just now she was bubbling over with plans for the immediate future, and she broke in impatiently on her mother’s lamentations over a torn muslin gown. “Oh, it doesn’t signify, mamma, you will be able to mend it in a trice. But only fancy what a delightful scheme there is afoot! My Lord Vidal is to give a supper-party at Vauxhall, and we are all to go. There is to be dancing and fireworks, and Vidal promises we shall go by water, which makes Eliza Matcham so cross because I am to be in Vidal’s boat, and he never asked her at all.”

“Who is ‘all,’ Sophia?” inquired her sister.

“Oh, the Matchams, and their cousin Peggy Delaine, and I dare say some others,” Sophia replied airily. “Can you conceive of anything more charming, mamma? But one thing is sure! I must have a new gown for it. I would die rather than wear the blue lustring again, if you can’t contrive a new one, I vow I shan’t go to the party at all, which would be a shame.”

Mrs. Challoner quite saw the force of all this, and was at once prolific of plans for the acquiring of a suitable gown, and exclamatory over the pleasure in store for her daughter. Into their ecstasies Mary’s matter-of-fact voice broke once again. “You’ll hardly be seen at Vauxhall in Vidal’s and Miss Delaine’s company, Sophia, I should hope.”

“And why not?” cried Sophia, beginning to pout. “Of course I knew you would try to spoil it for me, you cross thing! I dare say you would prefer I should stop at home.”

“Infinitely,” said Mary, unmoved by the hint of tears in her sister’s eyes. She looked straightly across at her mother. “Will you think for a moment, ma’am? Do you see nothing amiss in allowing your daughter to go out in public with a play-actress and the most notorious rake in town?”

Mrs. Challoner said to be sure it was a pity Miss Delaine was to be of the party, but was immediately cheered by the reflection that Sophia would be accompanied by the two Misses Matcham.

Mary got up, and it was to be seen that she was of medium height and very neat figure. There was a sparkle in her eyes, and her voice took on a certain crispness. “Very well, ma’am, if that comforts you. But there’s not a man alive would take my sister for the innocent girl she is who sees her in such company.”

Sophia swept a curtsey. “La, and thank you, my dear! But perhaps I am not so innocent as you think. I know very well what I am about, let me tell you.”

Mary looked at her for a moment. “Don’t go, Sophy!”

Sophia tittered. “Lord, how serious you are! Have you any more advice, I wonder?”

Mary’s hand dropped to her side again. “Certainly, child,” she said. “Marry that nice boy who worships you.”

Mrs. Challoner gave a small shriek of dismay. “Good God, you must be mad! Marry Dick Burnley? And she with her chances! I’ve a mind to box your ears, you stupid, provoking girl.”

“Well, ma’am, and what are those fine chances? If you push her much further down the road she is travelling now, you’ll have her Vidal’s light o’ love. A rare end, that, to your ambition.”

“Oh, you wicked creature!” gasped Sophia. “As if I would!”

“Why, child, what hope would you have once Vidal got you in his clutches?” Mary said gently. “Oh, I allow he’s hot for you! Who would not be? But it’s not marriage he means by you, and it will be something quite otherwise if he sees you in such loose company as you keep.” She stayed for a moment, awaiting any answer they might choose to give, but Mrs. Challoner for once had nothing to say, while Sophia sought refuge in a few sparkling easy tears. Having nothing further to say, Mary gathered up her embroidery and went out.

She might as well have held her peace. Uncle Henry having been coaxed into providing the necessary guineas to buy his pretty niece a new gown, Sophia went off to her party in high spirits, entirely, and quite rightly, satisfied with her appearance in pink tiffany, trimmed with rich blonde in scallops. Cousin Joshua, getting wind of it, came to condemn such behaviour, but got little satisfaction from Mary. She heard him out in a silence that seemed more abstracted than attentive and this so piqued him that he was unwise enough to ask her whether she were listening.

She brought her gaze back from the window, and surveyed him. “I beg your pardon, cousin?”

He was annoyed, and showed it “I believe you’ve not heard one word!” he said.

“I was thinking,” said Mary thoughtfully, “that puce does not become you, Joshua.”

“Puce?” stammered Mr. Simpkins. “Become me? What—Why—?”

“It is maybe your complexion that’s too high for it,” mused Miss Challoner.

Mr. Simpkins said with dignity: “I was speaking of Sophia, Mary.”

“I’m sure she would agree with me,” replied the lady maddeningly.

“She’s too easy, cousin. She don’t know the path she treads,” Joshua said, trying to bring the conversation back to its original topic. “She’s very different from you, you know.”

A slow smile curled Miss Challoner’s lips. “I do, of course, but it’s hardly kind in you to tell me so,” she said.

“In my eyes,” declared Joshua, “you are the prettier.” Miss Challoner seemed to consider this. “Yes?” she said interestedly. “But then, you chose puce.” She shook her head, and it was apparent she set no store by the compliment. When Sophia returned from her party it was long past midnight She shared a bedchamber with her sister, and found Mary awake, ready to hear an account of the night’s doings. While she undressed she prattled on of this personage and that, of the toilettes she had seen, of the supper she had eaten, of the secret walk she had stolen, and the kiss she had received, of how Eliza had come upon them, and been near sick with jealousy, and much more to the same tune. “And I’ll tell you what, Mary,” she ended jubilantly, “I shall be my Lady Vidal before the year’s out, you mark my words.” She curtsied to her own reflection in the mirror. “‘Your ladyship!’ Don’t you think I shall make a vastly pretty marchioness, sister? And everyone knows the Duke is getting very old, and I dare say he cant last very long now, and then I shall be your grace. If you don’t wed my cousin, Mary, maybe I shall find you a husband.”

“What, have I a place in all these schemes?” inquired Mary.

“To be sure, you need not fear I shall forget you,” Sophia promised.

Mary regarded her curiously for a moment. “Sophia, what’s in your mind?” she asked suddenly. “You’re not fool enough to think Vidal means marriage.”

Sophia began to plait her hair for the night. “He’ll mean it before the end. Mamma will see to that.”

“Oh?” Mary sat up in bed, and cupped her chin in her hands. “How?”

Sophia laughed. “You think no one has brain but yourself, don’t you? But you’ll see I shan’t manage so ill. Of course Vidal don’t mean marriage! Lord, I’m not so simple that I don’t know the reputation he bears. What if I let him run off with me?” She looked over her shoulder. “What then, do you suppose?”

Mary blinked. “I’m too mealy-mouthed to hazard a guess, my love.”

“Don’t fear for my virtue!” Sophia laughed. “Vidal may think I’m easy, but he’ll find he’ll get nothing from me without marriage. What do you think of that?” Mary shook her head. “We should quarrel if I told you.”

“And if he won’t wed me,” Sophia continued, “then mamma will have something to say, I promise you.”

“Nothing is more certain than that,” agreed Miss Chal-loner.

“Oh, not to Vidal!” Sophia said. “To the Duke himself! And I think Vidal will be glad to marry me to prevent the scandal. For there is my uncle as well as mamma, you know, and he would create a rare to-do. Vidal will have to marry me.”

Miss Challoner drew a deep breath, and lay back on her pillows. “My dear, I’d no notion you were so romantic,” she drawled.

“I am, I think,” nodded Sophia innocently. “I have always thought I should like to elope.”

Miss Challoner continued to observe her. “Do you care for him?” she asked. “Do you care at all?”

“Oh, I like him very well, though to be sure, I think Mr. Fletcher dresses better, and Harry Marshall has prettier manners. But Vidal’s a marquis, you see.” She took a last complacent look at her own image, and jumped into bed. “I’ve given you something to think of now, haven’t I?”

“I rather believe you have,” concurred Miss Challoner. It was certainly long before she fell asleep. Beside her Sophia lay dreaming of the honours in store for her, but Mary lay staring into the darkness, and seeing before her mind’s eye, a black-browed face, with a haughty thin-lipped mouth, and eyes that seemed to her fancy to look indifferently through her.

“You’re a fool, my girl,” Mary told herself. “Why should he look at you?”

She could find no reason at all, being singularly free from conceit. She could find very little reason either why she should want the gentleman to look at her. She took herself to task over it. What, was she to turn into a languishing miss? A bread-and-butter schoolgirl, sighing for a handsome face? God help the woman Vidal’s fancy lighted on! Ay, that was a better tune. Like father, like son. The old Duke’s affairs had been the talk of the town. He had a pretty-sounding name once, though he might be as virtuous as you please to-day. Satan, was it? Some such thing. They called the son Devil’s Cub, and not without reason, if the half of the tales told were true. Lord! Sophia was no match for the man. He would break her like a china doll. And how to prevent it?

Again there seemed to be no answer. The plan the chit had in mind would have been laughable had it not been nauseating. To be sure Vidal deserved to get paid in his own coin, but that—no, that was nasty work, even if it succeeded. And what a plan it was! Faith, it seemed mamma was so foolish as Sophia. What would the noble family of Alastair care for one more scandal added to their list? The plague was, mamma and Sophia would never be brought to realize that they would come off the worst from that encounter. Uncle Henry? Miss Challoner grimaced in the darkness. From Uncle Henry to Aunt Bella was no great step, and from Aunt Bella to the world a shorter one still. Miss Challoner had no desire to publish Sophia’s indiscretions abroad. She began to nibble one finger-tip, pondering her problem, and so, at last, fell asleep.

The morrow brought his lordship before her again, this time no picture of the mind. Nothing would do but that Sophia must go walking in Kensington Gardens with her sister to meet Eliza Matcham. When Mary perceived the Marquis approaching them down one of the paths, she understood the reason for this unwonted desire for exercise.

As usual, he was richly, if somewhat negligently dressed. Miss Challoner, incurably neat, wondered that a carelessly tied cravat and unpowdered hair could so well become a man. Not a doubt but that the Marquis had an air.

Sophia was blushing and peeping through her eyelashes. His lordship possessed himself of her hand, kissed it, and placed it on his arm.

“Oh, my lord!” Sophia murmured, casting down her eyes.

His smile was indulgent. “Well, child, what?” he said.

“I did not think to meet you,” Sophia explained, for her sister’s benefit.

The Marquis pinched her chin. “You’ve a short memory, my love.”

Miss Challoner with difficulty suppressed a chuckle. My lord disdained the art of dissimulation, did he? Faith, one could not help liking the creature.

“Indeed, I don’t know what you mean,” Sophia pouted. “We came expressly to meet Eliza Matcham and her brother. I wonder where they can be got to?”

“Confess you came to meet me!” the Marquis said. “What, was I really forgotten?”

There was a toss of the head for this. “La, do you suppose I think of you all day long, sir?”

“Egad, I hoped I had a place in your memory.”

Miss Challoner broke in on them. “I think I have just seen Miss Matcham cross the end of this walk,” she remarked.

His lordship glanced down at her impatiently, but Sophia said at once: “Oh, where? I would not miss her for the world!”

Miss Matcham, with her brother James, was soon overtaken, and Miss Challoner at once perceived that their mission was to engage her in talk while the Marquis and Sophia lost themselves. This friendly office was frustrated by the exasperating behaviour to their quarry, who refused to be separated from her sister.

Since neither the Marquis nor Sophia put themselves to the trouble of including her in their conversation, and Miss Matcham was wholly engaged in keeping the hem of her muslin gown from getting wet on the grass, she had ample opportunity to observe her sister’s lover. A very little time was enough to convince her that love, as she understood it, was felt by neither. Her sister, she thought, would bore his lordship in a week, and as she listened to him, and watched him, she found herself wondering again how Sophia could imagine that he felt any more than a passing fancy for her. Certainly he wanted the chit; he was of the type that would go to any lengths to get what he wanted, and, unless she was much mistaken, Miss Challoner was sure that once the prize was won, he would cease to desire it. Then woe betide Sophia with her artless ideas of shaming him into marriage. Why, thought Mary, one could never shame my Lord Vidal, because he did not care what was said of him, and had already given the world to understand, beyond possibility of mistake, that he would do exactly as he pleased on every occasion. Scandal! Mary almost laughed aloud. Lord, he would carry off anything with that insolent high-bred manner of his, while as for being afraid of public opinion, he’d raise those black brows of his in faint surprise at such a notion.

These reflections occupied her mind till the expedition broke up. Prom something the Marquis said to Sophia in a low voice at parting she gathered that a future assignation had been made, but Sophia did not tell her where it was to be. Her smiles vanished with the Marquis, and on the way home she complained ceaselessly of her sister’s lack of tact in remaining at her side all the morning.

As for the Marquis, finding himself with time on his hands, he strolled round to Half Moon Street to visit the most congenial of his relatives.

Although it was past noon, he found this worthy still attired in a dressing-gown, and without his wig. The remains of breakfast stood upon the table, but my Lord Rupert Ala-stair seemed to have finished this repast, and was smoking a long pipe, and reading his letters. He looked up as the door opened, and made a grab at his wig, which lay conveniently on the sofa beside him, but when he saw his nephew he relaxed again.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Here, what the devil do you make of this?” He tossed over the sheet of paper he had been perusing, and tore open another of his letters.

Vidal laid down his hat and cane and came to the fire, running his eye over the note he held. He grinned. “Ain’t it plain enough, O my uncle? Mr. Tremlowe would be gratified by the payment of his bill. Who the devil’s Mr. Tremlowe?”

“Damned barber,” growled Lord Rupert. “What’s he say I owe him?”

The Marquis read out a startling total.

“Pack of lies,” said Lord Rupert. “Never saw so much money all at once in all my life. Damme, what have I had from him? Nothing at all! A couple of wigs (a Crutch and a She-dragon, and I never wore the Crutch) and maybe a bottle of Pomatum. Blister it, does the fellow think I’m going to pay him?”

The question was purely rhetorical, but the Marquis said: “How long has he known you, Rupert?”

“Lord, all my life, curse his impudence!”

“Then I don’t suppose he does,” said Vidal calmly.

Lord Rupert pointed the stem of his pipe at Mr. Tremlowe’s missive. “I’ll tell you what it is, my boy. The fellow’s dunning me. Put it in the fire.”

The Marquis obeyed without the slightest hesitation. Lord Rupert was scanning another sheet of paper. “Here’s another,” he exclaimed. It went the way of the first. “Never see anything but bills!” he said. “What’s your post bring you, Vidal?”

“Love letters,” promptly replied his lordship.

“Young dog,” chuckled his uncle. He disposed of the rest of his correspondence, and suddenly became solemn. “I’d something to say to you. Now what the plague was it?” He shook his head. “Gone clean out of my head. Which reminds me, my boy, I’ve a piece of advice to give you. I was dining with Ponsonby last night, and he said you was bound to him for Friday next.”

“Oh, God, am I?” said the Marquis wearily. “Don’t touch the brandy!” his uncle adjured him. “The burgundy’s well enough, and you can swallow the port, but the brandy’s devilish bad.”

“Given you a head, Rupert?” inquired his lordship solicitously.

“Worst I’ve had in years,” declared Lord Rupert. He stretched his long legs out before him, and lay looking up somewhat owlishly at his nephew. It seemed to dawn on him that the hour was an unusually early one for the Marquis to be abroad. “What brings you here?” he asked suspiciously. “If you want to borrow money, Vidal, I tell you plainly, I’m cleaned out. Lost a milleleva last night. Never seen anything like the run of the luck. Bank’s won for weeks. Burn it, I believe I’ll give up pharaoh and take to whist.”

Vidal leaned his shoulders against the mantelpiece, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “I never pursue forlorn hopes, uncle,” he said sweetly. “I’ve come for the pleasure of seeing you. Can you doubt it?”

His lordship shot out a hand. “Now don’t do that, my boy!” he said. “Damme, when you start talking like Avon I’m off! If you’ve not come to borrow money—”

“Boot’s on the other leg,” interrupted the Marquis. Lord Rupert’s jaw dropped. “Ecod, was it you lent me five hundred pounds last month? When did I say I’d pay?”

“Judgment Day, belike,” said his undutiful nephew. Lord Rupert, shook his head. “Won’t be before, if the luck don’t turn soon,” he agreed gloomily. “If you stand in need of it, my boy, I might ask Avon for a trifle.”

“Lord, I could ask him myself, couldn’t I?” the Marquis said.

“Well, I don’t mind telling you, Vidal, that’s a thing I don’t do till the tipstaffs are after me,” confessed Rupert. “I’m not saying Avon’s mean, but he’s devilish unpleasant over these little affairs.”

The Marquis glanced down at him with a glint in his eyes. “Sir, I am constrained to remind you that his grace has the honour to be my sire.”

“Don’t do it,” roared his uncle. “Look’ee, Vidal, if you’re going to look down your nose, and turn into the living spit of Justin, you’ve one friend the less. I’m done with you.”

“My God, could I survive?” mocked the Marquis. Lord Rupert started to get up, but was thrust back again. “Easy now,” said his nephew. “I’ve done.”

Rupert relaxed again. “Y’know, you’ll have to watch it, Dominic,” he said severely. “One in the family’s too much already. Avon’s got a damned nasty way with him, and if you fall into it you’ll find yourself with a whole pack of enemies.” He stopped and scratched his head. “Not but what you’ve got them already, ha’n’t you?”

Vidal shrugged. “I dare say,” he replied indifferently. “I don’t lose sleep over them.”

“Cool fish, ain’t you?” said Rupert, eyeing him. “Ever let anything trouble you?”

The Marquis yawned. Tve never found anything worth troubling over.”

“H’m! Not even women?” The thin lips curled. “Least of all women.” Lord Rupert looked solemn. “Won’t do, y’know. Must care about something, Dominic.”

“Sermon, uncle?”

“Advice, my boy. Damn it, there’s something wrong with you, so there is! Never see you but what you’re after some wench or other, and the devil’s in it you don’t care for one of ’em—” He broke off and clapped a hand to his brow. “That’s got it!” he exclaimed. “Put me in mind of what I had to say to you!”

“Oh?” A faint interest sounded in Vidal’s voice. “Have you found a charmer, Rupert? At your age, too!”

“Fiend seize it! D’you think I’m in my dotage!” said his lordship indignantly. “But that’s not it. This is serious, Dominic. Where’s the burgundy? Take a drop, my boy; it won’t do you a mite of harm.” He picked up the bottle, and poured out two glasses. “Ay, it’s serious this tune, I warn you

—What do you think of the wine? Not so bad, eh? Forget where I got it.”

“It’s good,” said the Marquis positively, and poured out two more glasses. “You had it from my cellar.”

“Did I so? I’ll say this for you, Vidal, youVe inherited your father’s palate. It’s the best thing I know of either of you.”

The Marquis bowed. “We thank you. What’s your serious warning?”

“I’m just about to tell you, aren’t I? Don’t keep breaking in, my boy; it’s a devilish bad habit.” He drained his glass, and set it down. “That’s cleared my head a trifle. It’s that yellow-headed chit, Dominic. Filly you had on your arm at Vauxhall Gardens t’other night. Can’t remember her name.”

“Well?” said his lordship.

Rupert reached out a long arm for the bottle. “Avon’s got wind of her.”

“Well?”

Rupert turned his head to look at him. “Don’t keep on saying ‘Well,’ burn you!” he said testily. “I’m telling you Avon’s heard things, and he ain’t pleased.”

“Do you expect me to break out in a sweat?” asked Vidal. “Of course my father knows. It’s a habit with him.”

“And a damned bad habit, too,” said Rupert feelingly. “You know your own business best, or, at any rate, you think you do, but if you take my advice, you’ll go easy with—what in hell’s the girl’s name?”

“You can pass over her name.”

“No, I can’t,” contradicted Rupert. “I can’t go on calling her girl, filly, chit, yaller-head; it throws me out.”

“Just as you please,” yawned Vidal. “You’ll forget it in five minutes. Sophia.”

“That’s it,” nodded my lord. “Never could stand the name since I got entangled with a widow called Sophia. D’you know, boy, that woman well-nigh married me?”

“That wasn’t Sophia,” objected Vidal. “That was Maria Hiscock.”

“No, no, that’s a different one,” said Rupert impatiently. “Sophia was years before your time. And she devilish nearly had me. You be warned, Dominic.”

“You are kindness itself,” answered Vidal politely, “I can only repeat what I seem to have said already several times; I do not at this present contemplate marriage.”

“But ain’t this Sophia a thought different from the others?” asked his lordship curiously. “Daughter of a cit? Lay you odds you stir up trouble there.”

“Not I. If it were the sister now—!” Vidal gave a short laugh. “That’s one of those enemies of mine you spoke of, or I’m much mistaken.”

“Didn’t see the sister, did I? The mother will do what she can to see you tied up in wedlock. ’Pon my soul, if I ever set eyes on a worse harpy!”

“And the sister would send me to the devil,” Vidal said. “I don’t please Miss Prunes and Prisms.”

Lord Rupert cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t you, begad? And does she please you?”

“Good God, no! We don’t deal together. She’d spoil sport if she could.” He showed his teeth in a rather saturnine smile. “Well, if she chooses to cross swords with me, she’ll maybe learn something in the encounter.” He picked up his hat and cane, and strolled to the door. “I’ll leave you, beloved. You’re becoming damned moral, you know.” He went out and the door shut behind him before Lord Rupert, astonished and indignant at the charge, could think of a suitable retort.

Chapter IV

MY Lord Carlisle having discovered that his sedate protege had an incongruous passion for gambling, thought he could do no better for him than to introduce him to the newest of the hells. The young man seemed to have plenty of money at his command, and if he chose to lose it over the dice, it was no business of my lord’s. Of late Mr. Comyn’s face had worn a very serious expression, and my lord had no hesitation in laying this at Miss Martin’s door, that sprightly damsel having been bundled off to Paris in charge of her brother.

“Hang all women!” Carlisle said blithely. “Why, man, there’s not one worth the half of these glum looks of yours.”

Mr. Comyn eyed him calmly. “You are merry, sir, but you mistake,” he said politely. “I believe I have a natural gravity which perhaps misleads you.”

“Devil a bit,” said his lordship. “I know all about you, my friend. Gone to France, hasn’t she? I see young Marling’s back again.”

Mr. Comyn compressed his lips. My lord laughed. “Don’t like him, do you? Well, it’s a dull dog.” He clapped Mr. Comyn on the shoulder. “You’ll forget the fair Juliana over a bottle. Tell you what, I’ll take you to Timothy’s.”

“I shall be happy to accompany your lordship,” bowed Mr. Comyn.

“You’re not in society until you’ve crossed that threshold,” Carlisle went on. “It’s the newest of the hells. Vidal and Fox made it the fashion. The play’s high; you’re not the man to mind that, I take it. All the same,” he added thoughtfully,

“I’d not play at Vidal’s table if I were you. The pace he sets is a trifle too hot for most of us. Don’t know if you’ve run across the Devil’s Cub yet?”

“I had the honour of meeting his lordship at the drum last week,” said Mr. Comyn. “I shall be happy to renew my acquaintance with him.”

Carlisle stared. “Will you, by gad?” he said.

Timothy’s was a discreet-looking establishment in a street off St. James’s. An unobtrusive individual, casually strolling up and down the road, was pointed out to Mr. Comyn as the orderly-man, engaged to give warning if any constables approached. The windows were thickly curtained, but when a funereally clad porter admitted my Lord Carlisle and his protégé, Mr. Comyn fairly blinked at the blaze of lights within the house. The porter, who was clothed in black, rather startled him, but on the way upstairs my lord explained that this sombre livery was a whim of Mr. Fox’s, who was given to such conceits.

“Surely, sir, Mr. Fox is not the owner of a gaming-house?” said Mr. Comyn, greatly surprised.

“Oh no, but he’s Vidal’s crony, and Timothy, so I’m told, was in the Duke of Avon’s employ until he discovered in himself a genius for this sort of thing. Thus, you see, what Vidal or his intimates want is all that signifies to Master Timothy.”

They had reached the head of the stairway, and Lord Carlisle led the way into the first of the gaming-rooms. It was somewhat crowded, and was apparently given over to pharaoh and deep basset.

My lord passed through it, exchanging a greeting here and there, and led Mr. Comyn through an archway into a second and smaller apartment. The rattle of dice sounded here, and Mr. Comyn’s eye brightened. There was only one table, and that occupied the centre of the room, and was surrounded by a fair number of onlookers.

“H’m! Vidal’s bank,” grunted Carlisle. “Shouldn’t play if I were you.”

Mr. Comyn perceived my Lord Vidal at the end of the table, a glass at his elbow. His cravat was loosened, and a strand of lightly-powdered hair had escaped the riband that tied it in his neck. He wore a coat of purple velvet, heavily laced, and a flowered waistcoat, one or two of the buttons of which had come undone. He looked pale in the candle-light, and rather more dissipated than usual. He glanced up as Mr. Comyn drew near the table, but his eyes, which seemed unusually brilliant, betrayed no recognition.

Carlisle tugged at Mr. Comyn’s sleeve. “Better play pharaoh,” he muttered under his breath. “Vidal’s in a wild humour by the look of it. See who’s at the table? Oh! you wouldn’t know! Fellow beside Jack Bowling—red-faced fellow in a bag-wig. His name’s Quarles. There’s something of a bone lies between him and the Cub. There’ll be trouble before the morning. Best out of it.”

Mr. Comyn regarded the red-faced gentleman with interest. “But I hardly suppose, my lord, that I could be concerned in the trouble,” he said precisely.

“Oh lord, no! Just some pother over a wench that Vidal snapped from under Quarles’s nose.”

“I apprehend,” said Mr. Comyn, “that most of my Lord Vidal’s quarrels owe their existence to a female.”

He returned to the contemplation of the table. At Vidal’s right hand, Mr. Fox lolled in his chair, busy with a gold toothpick. He raised a languid hand in greeting to Carlisle. “Coming in, my lord? Take the bank?”

A heap of gold and paper lay before Vidal. Carlisle shook his head. “Not I, Fox.”

The Marquis tossed off what remained in his glass. “I’ll throw you for it,” he offered.

“I advise against it, my lard,” one of the players said mincingly. “Vidal has had the devil’s luck all this week.”

“I’m not dicing to-night,” Carlisle replied. “If you have a place at the table, Mr. Comyn here is of a mind to play.”

My lord paused in the act of refilling his glass, and again looked up at Mr. Comyn. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said carelessly. “I thought I knew you. Do you want to throw for the bank?”

“I thank your lordship, but I would prefer to throw against the bank,” replied Mr. Comyn, and sat down beside Lord Rupert Alastair.

Lord Carlisle, having done what he could to prevent his protege from joining the table, shrugged fatalistically, and withdrew.

“Raise you to a hundred, gentlemen,” Vidal said, and lay back in his chair, feeling in his capacious coat-pocket for his snuff-box. He pulled it out, and opened it, and took a pinch, flashing a quick look round the table. A gentleman in puce satin, and a very large stock buckle, protested that fifty was deep enough.

Mr. Fox lifted weary eyebrows, and stretched out his hand for Vidal’s snuff-box. He regarded it closely, and remarked with a sigh: “Le Sueur. Email en plain. Very pretty. A hundred, I think you said?” He put it down and picked up the dice-box.

Someone at the other end of the table said that the game went too deep, but was overruled.

“Standing out, Cholmondley?” asked the Marquis.

“By God, I’m not, then! You’ve too many of my notes under your hand, Vidal. Keep it at fifty.”

“Raising you to a hundred,” the Marquis repeated.

Mr. Fox took the dice. “A hundred it is, and those afraid of it stand out,” he drawled. He called a main of eight and threw fives. “Rot you, Vidal,” he said good-humouredly, and scribbled his name on a slip of paper, and pushed it across the table.

The red-faced gentleman seated midway down the table opposite Lord Rupert Alastair looked under his brows at the Marquis, and said loud enough to be heard: “I’d say it was time another man held the bank. This is a damned one-sided game.”

His neighbour, Mr. Bowling, saw the glitter in the Marquis’s eye, and nudged him warningly. “Easy, now, easy, Montague,” he said quietly. “Ever known the luck to run evenly?”

Someone standing amongst the spectators said beneath his breath: “Vidal’s three parts drunk. There’ll be trouble soon.”

Drunk the Marquis might be, but his speech and intellect were unimpaired. He lay back in his chair, one hand in his breeches pocket, the other with its long fingers curled round the stem of his wineglass; and his hard stare challenged the dissatisfied player. “Had enough, Quarles?”

The tone was an insult. Mr. Fox took snuff, and looked sideways under the incredible arch of his brows. Lord Rupert picked up the dice-box. “Ah, you’re wasting tune. I’ll call seven.” He threw and lost. “Rabbit it, I’ve called ’em for the last hour, and the cursed dice turn up aces and threes.”

Montague Quarles said with bitter distinctness: “Enough? No, by God, but let someone else hold the bank! What do you say, gentlemen?” He looked round the table, but met with no response till Lord Cholmondley said gruffly: “I’m satisfied. Egad, I hope we know how to stand against a run of bad luck. Too much talk, is what I say.”

The Marquis was still looking at Montague Quarles. “There’s a matter of some four thousand pounds in the bank. Throw you for it.”

“Come, that’s fair enough!” declared a bluff man on the Marquis’s left.

Mr. Quarles said angrily: “Damned if I will! Not against you, my lord!”

“My God, do we sit all night arguing?” Bowling cried. “Let’s be done with this!” He took up the dice-box, called a main and threw. Vidal pushed a little pile of guineas towards him, and the game went on.

Money passed backwards and forwards, but the bank was still an easy winner at the end of a couple of hours’ play. The Marquis was drinking steadily. So were several others, notably Mr. Quarles, whose scowl deepened with each glass. On the Marquis the wine seemed to have little or no effect, His hand was steady enough, and there was only that glitter in his eyes to betray to one who knew him how much he had drunk.

My Lord Rupert, another heavy drinker, had reached the rollicking stage, and was sitting with his wig askew. Mr. Fox had broached his second bottle, and seemed somnolent. My Lord Rupert won a little, lost again, and called up the table to his nephew: “Rot you, Vidal, this is poor sport! Quicken the game, my boy!”

“Take the bank, Rupert?”

My lord pulled his pocket linings out, and began to count the guineas that lay before him. It was a difficult business. “I make it eleven,” he announced with a hiccough. “Can’t start a bank on ’leven guineas, Vidal. Can’t start bank at Timothy’s on less than sixty guineas.”

The Marquis said recklessly: “Raise you to two hundred, gentlemen.”

Mr. Fox nodded. Bowling pushed back his chair. “I’m out,” he said. “That’s too deep for me, Vidal.”

“Bank can’t win for ever,” the Marquis replied. “Stay the course, Jack, the night’s young yet.”

Mr. Bowling blinked at the clock on the far wall. “Young? I make it past four.”

“That’s young, ain’t it?” said Lord Rupert. “Four? Why, that’s devilish young!”

Mr. Bowling laughed. “Oh, I protest! I’m a man of sedate habits. Do you mean to take your breakfast here? I’m for my bed.”

“Sit it out!” recommended Lord Cholmondley. “We’ll break Vidal yet. Vidal! Is that bay mare by Sunshine out of Mad Molly still in your stables? I’ll stake my Blue Lightning against the mare I break your bank before six.”

The Marquis poured more wine. “Make it five, and I’ll take you.”

Mr. Fox opened his eyes. “What’s amiss? You for bed too?”

“I don’t sit after five,” the Marquis said. “I’m for Newmarket and back again.”

Lord Cholmondley gaped at him. “God save us all, it’s not the day of your race? Man, you’re crazy to think to drive to Newmarket! Damme, Vidal, you’re drunk. You can’t do it! And here’s me with a cool five hundred backing you!”

“Be calm, my loved one,” mocked Vidal. “I drive best when I’m drunk.”

“But up all night—no, blister me, that’s too much. Get to bed, you madman!”

“What, to, save your stake for you? Be damned if I do! My coach calls for me at five. Does the bet stand? You’ll break my bank before five—your colt to my mare.”

“I’ll do it!” Cholmondley said, slapping the table with his open hand. “Got an hour, ha’n’t I? Tune enough. Where’s the betting-book?”

The bet was duly entered. The waiter was about to remove the book when the Marquis drawled: “I’ll lay you a further five hundred I reach Newmarket under the given time, Cholmondley—play or pay.”

“Done!” said Cholmondley promptly. “Now I’m for you, my boy. Playing two hundred!”

“Two hundred it is,” the Marquis agreed, and put up his eyeglass to watch the throw of the dice.

Cholmondley called sixes. Lord Rupert looked solemnly at the dice as they fell on the table. “Deuce ace,” he declared. “Bank can’t win for ever, eh, Vidal?”

Mr. Quarles, who had been tapping an impatient foot, burst out: “I’d say my Lord Vidal can’t lose!”

The eyeglass dangled on its black ribbon from between my lord’s fingers. “Would you?” said the Marquis gently, and as though he waited for more.

“Oh, stand out, Quarles, if you can’t stay the course!” said Cholmondley impatiently.

It was evident that Mr. Quarles had reached the quarrelsome stage. “I’ll stay the course well enough, sir, but the luck’s too damned uneven for my taste.”

Mr. Fox took a mirror from his capacious pocket, and studied his reflection in it. With considerable care he straightened his toupet, and flicked a speck of snuff from the lapel of his coat. “Dominic,” he said wearily.

The Marquis shot him a look.

“Dominic, how did this place grow to be so devilish vulgar?”

“Hush, Charles, hush!” said the Marquis. “You interrupt my dear friend. He is about to explain himself.”

The bluff man, who had as yet taken no part in the swiftly brewing quarrel, leaned over Mr. Bowling’s vacant chair, and plucked at Quarles’s sleeve. “Hold your peace, man. You’re out of tune. Don’t play if you’re shy of the luck, but for God’s sake let’s have an end to this bickering.”

“I’ll play,” Mr. Quarles said obstinately. “But I say it’s tune another man took the bank!”

“Lord, man, there’s a bet on! The bank stays with Vidal.”

“Dominic,” said Mr. Fox plaintively. “Dominic, my dear fellow, I shall have to give up this place, positively I shall have to give it up now the herd has discovered it.”

My lord was still watching Quarles. “Patience, Charles, Mr. Quarles don’t like to see the bank win. You should sympathize.”

Quarles started up. “I don’t like the way this game has gone, my lord,” he said loudly, “and if you won’t give up the bank, I say give us fresh dice!”

His words brought about a sudden uneasy silence. Cholmondley tried to fill the breach, saying quickly: “Lord, you’re too drunk to know what you’re saying, Quarles. Let’s get on with the game.”

“I think not.” The voice came from the end of the table. The Marquis was leaning forward, his wineglass still to his hand. “So you don’t like the dice, eh?”

“No, I don’t like them, curse you!” Quarles shouted. “And I don’t like your high-handed ways, my lord. They won’t serve. I’ve sat three nights and seen you win—”

He got no further; the Marquis was up and had dashed the contents of his glass full in Quarles’s face. He was smiling now and his eyes blazed. “And that’s a waste of good wine,” he said, and turned and said something to the waiter at his elbow. Mr. Quarles, with the burgundy dripping down his front, sprang up and made a clumsy lunge at him. Cholmondley and Captain Wraxall, the bluff gentleman, forced him back.

“Damn it, you asked for that!” Cholmondley swore. “Take it back, you fool! We all know you’re drunk.”

The Marquis had resumed his seat. The waiter looked frightened, and whispered to him. My lord turned on him with something like a snarl, and the man fled.

Lord Rupert got up rather unsteadily. “Fiend seize it, the champagne’s got into my head!” he said. But the sudden interlude seemed to have jerked him back to sobriety. “There’s been enough of this,” he said authoritatively. “You be damned for a fool, Vidal. Can’t you see the fellow’s drunk?”

Lord Vidal laughed. “I’m drunk myself, Rupert, but I can tell when a man calls me cheat.”

“Good God, my lord, you’ll never care for what’s said after the third bottle!” cried Captain Wraxall.

Lord Cholmondley gave Mr. Quarles’s arm a shake. “Take it back, man; you’re out of your senses.”

Mr. Quarles wrenched himself free. “You’ll meet me for this, my lord!” he roared.

“Be sure I will,” said the Marquis. “Well settle it now, my buck.”

Rupert took up the dice. “Break ’em,” he said briefly. “Where’s that rogue Timothy? I want a hammer.”

Sir Horace Tremlett, he of the mincing speech, protested. “I vow it’s not necessary, my lard. We know my Lard Vidal, I believe. Break the dice? ’Pon my soul, sir, it’s to insult his lardship.”

“To hell with that!” said Rupert. “I’m breaking ’em, see? If they’re true, Quarles apologizes. That’s fair, ain’t it?”

“Ay, that’s the best,” Captain Wraxall agreed.

Mr. Quarles was wiping his face. “I say my lord will meet me! By God, I’ll not take a glass of wine in the face and say thank you for it!”

Cholmondley spoke in Lord Rupert’s ear. “It’s gone too far now. Rot that nephew of yours! What’s to do?”

“Break the dice,” Rupert said obstinately. “Can’t have it said an Alastair plays crooked.”

“Oh, you’re as drunk as Vidal! Who’s to say so? Quarles will take it back when he’s sober if you can stop Vidal forcing it on now.”

The waiter had come back into the room carrying a flat case. With a scared look at the Marquis he laid this on the table. Vidal opened it, and it was to be seen that a brace of pistols lay within. “Take your choice,” he said.

Rupert stared. “What’s this? Can’t fight here, Dominic. Arrange it for you out at Barn Elms, nine o’clock.”

“By nine o’clock I shall be in Newmarket,” said the Marquis. “I’ll settle my score before I leave.”

Mr. Fox roused himself. He inspected the pistols through his eyeglass, and looked inquiringly at Vidal. “Where did they come from?” he said. “Don’t carry pistols to gaming houses myself.”

“They come out of my coach,” replied Vidal. He looked at the clock. “It waits. Choose, you!”

“I’m for you!” Mr. Quarles declared. He rolled an eye at Captain Wraxall. “Sir, will you act for me?”

“Act for you?” exploded the Captain. “I’ll have nothing to do with the business. My lord, you’re in no fit case to fight, and I recommend you to go home and let your seconds arrange the matter more seemly,”

Vidal laughed. “Not fit? By God, that’s rich, Wraxall. You don’t know me very well, do you?”

“I am happy to say I do not, sir!” said the Captain stiffly.

“Watch then!” My lord drew a small gold-mounted pistol from his pocket. He levelled it, still lounging in his chair, and fired before any could stop him. There was a loud report, and the smash of glass as the bullet shattered the big mirror at the end of the room.

“What in hell’s name—?” began Wraxall furiously, and broke off, staring in the direction of my lord’s pointing finger. One of a cluster of three candles was no longer burning. The voice of Mr. Comyn said calmly: “Quite remarkable shooting—under the circumstances.”

Lord Rupert, forgetting larger issues, called out: “Outed it, begad, and not touched the wax! Good lad!”

The explosion brought those still remaining in the other rooms hurrying to the scene. Vidal paid no heed. “Don’t know me very well, do you?” he repeated, and laughed again.

Cholmondley, casting a glance of rebuke at Rupert, admonished Mr. Quarles once more. “Go home and sleep on it, Quarles. If you want to fight, fight sober. You’re no match for Vidal else.”

A stout individual dressed in discreet black pushed his way through the knot of men in the doorway. “What’s this, gentlemen?” he said. “Who fired that shot?”

Vidal raised his brows. “You interrupt, Timothy. I fired that shot.”

The stout man looked aghast. “My lord, my lord, what wild work is this? You’ll ruin me, my lord!” He saw the case containing the pistols and made a pounce for them. My lord’s hand shot out and grasped his wrist. Timothy met his eyes for a moment, and said distressfully: “My lord, I beg of you—my lord, don’t do it here!”

He was thrust back. “Damn you, stop whining!” Vidal sprang up, overturning his chair. “Am I to sit here till noon while Mr. Quarles makes up his mind? Name your friends!”

Quarles rolled a hot eye round the circle. No one came forward. “I’ll act for myself since you’re all so shy,” he sneered.

Mr. Comyn, his sedateness quite unimpaired, rose from his seat. “Since it’s my Lord Vidal’s honour that is in question it will be wise to have a gentleman to act for you, sir,” he said.

“To hell with the lot of you!” swore Quarles. “I’ll act for myself.”

“Your pardon, sir,” returned Mr. Comyn smoothly, “but I think you must see that if you doubt his lordship’s good faith, your seconds should carefully examine these pistols, which I apprehend are his lordship’s own. In short, I offer myself at your disposal.”

“Obliged to you,” growled Quarles.

Vidal was leaning on a chair back. “That’s a mighty long speech,” he remarked, with just that faint suggestion of slurring his words together. “Is it to insult me, or not?”

“Such, my lord, is not at the moment my intention,” replied Mr. Comyn.

The Marquis laughed. “Didn’t know you had it in you. You’re devilish correct, ain’t you?”

“I trust I am conversant with the rules governing such affairs as these, my lord. Will you name your friends?”

The Marquis was still looking at him with an amused and not unkindly eye. “Charles, you might act for me,” he said, without turning his head.

Mr. Fox arose, sighing. “Oh, very well, Dominic, if you must behave so damned irregularly.” He went apart with Mr. Comyn, and they inspected the weapons with due solemnity, and pronounced them identical.

Lord Rupert pushed his way unceremoniously to his nephew’s side. “Go put your head in a bucket of water, Vidal!” he said. “Stap me if I ever heard the like of you to-night! Mind you, I don’t say the fellow don’t deserve to have a hole in him, but do the thing decently, my boy, that’s all I ask!” He broke off to hurl somewhat conflicting advice to Captain WraxalL “Move those candles a shade to the left, Wraxall. Must have the light fair to both.”

The table was pushed back. Mr. Fox and Mr. Comyn were measuring the paces.

The pistols were presented. My lord took his in what looked to be an alarmingly slack hold. Apparently his uncle did not think so, for he said urgently: “Don’t kill him, Dominic!”

The seconds stepped back, the word was given. My lord’s pistol hand jerked up swiftly; there was a flash and a report, followed almost instantly by an answering shot. Mr. Quarles’s bullet buried itself in the wall beyond my lord, and Mr. Quarles pitched forward on to his face.

The Marquis tossed his pistol to Mr. Fox. “Give ’em to my man, Charles,” he said, and turned away to pick up his snuff-box, and handkerchief.

“Damn you, Vidal, I believe you have killed him!” Rupert said angrily.

“I’m very nearly sure of it, dear uncle,” said the Marquis.

Mr. Comyn, on his knees beside the fallen man, looked up. “A surgeon should be fetched,” he said. “I do not think that life is extinct.”

“I must be more drunk than I knew, then,” remarked his lordship. “I’m sorry, Charles; I meant to make the place habitable for you.”

Lord Cholmondley started towards him. “Devil take you, Vidal, you’d best be gone. You’ve done enough for one night.”

“I thought so, certainly,” said the Marquis. “Mr. Comyn apparently disagrees.” He glanced at the clock. “Hell and damnation, it’s past five already!”

“You’re surely not driving to Newmarket now?” cried Captain Wraxall, appalled by his callousness.

“Why not?” said Vidal coolly.

Captain Wraxall sought for words, and found none. The Marquis turned on his heel and went out.

Chapter V

it was only a little past noon on the following day when her Grace of Avon, accompanied most unwillingly by Lord Rupert, first called at Vidal’s home. The Marquis’s major-domo responded to his lordship’s anxious look with the smallest of bows. Lord Rupert heaved a sigh of relief. One never knew what might be found in Vidal’s apartments.

“I want my son,” her grace stated flatly.

But it appeared that the Marquis had not returned from Newmarket.

“There, what did I tell you?” said Rupert. “Leave a note for him, my dear. The devil alone knows when he’ll be back, eh, Fletcher?”

“I have no precise knowledge myself, my lord.”

“I shall come back again later,” announced her grace.

“But, Léonie—”

“And again, and again, and again until he has returned,” said her grace obstinately.

She kept her word, but on her last visit, in full ball dress at seven in the evening, she declared that she would enter the house and await her son there.

Lord Rupert followed her weakly into the hall. “Ay, but I’m on my way to Devereaux’s card party,” he expostulated. “I can’t stay here all night!”

The Duchess flung out exasperated hands. “Well, go then!” she said. “I find you fort ennuyant! For me, I must see Dominique, and I do not need you at all.”

“You always were an ungrateful chit,” complained his lordship. “Here am I dancing attendance on you the whole day, and all you can say is that you don’t need me.”

Léonie’s irrepressible dimple peeped out. “But it is quite true, Rupert; I do not need you. When I have seen Dominique I shall take a chair to my party. It is very simple.”

“No, you won’t,” said Rupert. “Not with those diamonds on you.” He followed her into the library, where a small fire burned, and struggled out of his greatcoat. “Where’s that fellow gone off to? Fletcher! What’s his lordship in the cellar that her grace would like?”

The suave Fletcher showed some small signs of perplexity at that. “I will endeavour, my lord ...”

The Duchess had cast off her cloak, and seated herself by the fire. “Ah, bah, I do not want your ratafia, me. I will drink a glass of port with you, mon vieux.”

Lord Rupert scratched his head, tilting his wig slightly askew. “Oh, very well! But it’s not what I’d call a lady’s drink.”

“Me, I am not a lady,” announced her grace. “I have been very well educated, and I will drink port.”

Fletcher withdrew, quite impassive. His lordship remonstrated once more. “Y’know you mustn’t talk like that before servants, Léonie. Ton my soul—”

“If you like,” interrupted Léonie, “I will play piquet with you till Dominique comes!”

Dominic came an hour later. A sulky dashed up the street and stopped outside the house. Léonie flung down her cards, and ran to the window, pulling aside the heavy curtains, but was too late to catch a glimpse of her son. A groom was already driving the sulky away, and inside the house a door slammed, and Fletcher’s discreet voice sounded. A sharper one answered; a quick step trod in the hall, and Vidal came into the library.

He was pale, and his eyes were frowning and tired. Mud had generously splashed his breeches and plain buff coat, and his neckcloth was crumpled and limp. “Ma mère!” he said, surprise in his voice.

Léonie momentarily forgot her mission. She went to him, grasping the lapels of his coat. “Oh, you have not killed yourself! But tell me, Dominique, at once, did you get there in the time?”

His hands covered hers with a gesture rather mechanical.

“Yes, of course. But what are you doing here? Rupert, too? Is anything amiss?”

“Anything amiss,” exploded Rupert. “That’s rich! Ton my soul, that’s rich! Oh, there’s naught amiss, never fear! You’ve only killed that fellow Quarles and set the whole town in a roar.”

“Dead, is he?” said his lordship. He put Léonie from him, and walked to the table. “Well, I thought as much.”

“No, no, he is not dead!” Léonie said vehemently. “You shan’t say so, Rupert!”

“It don’t matter what I say,” responded my lord. “If he ain’t dead now he will be in a day’s time. You fool, Vidal.” The Marquis had poured himself out a glass of wine, but was looking down at the red liquid instead of drinking it. “Runners after me?”

“They will be,” his uncle said grimly. A heavy frown was gathering. The Marquis’s lips tightened. “Damnation!” His glance flickered to Léonie’s troubled face. “Don’t let it disturb you, madame, I beg.”

“Dominique, did you—did you, in effect, mean to kill him?” she asked, her eyes on his face. He shrugged, “Oh, since I fought at all, yes.”

“I do not mind you killing people when you have reason, you know, but—but—was there a reason, mon enfant?” said her grace.

“The fellow was drunk, and you knew it, Vidal!” Rupert said.

“Perfectly.” The Marquis sipped his wine. “But so was I drunk.” Again he looked towards Léonie. What he saw in her face made him say with a kind of suppressed violence: “Why do you look at me like that? You know what I am, do you not? Do you not?”

“Here, Dominic!” his uncle said, in a voice of protest. “You’re talking to your mother, boy.”

Léonie raised an admonishing finger. “Enough, Rupert. Yes, I know, my little one, and I am very unhappy for you.” She blinked away a tear. “You are too much my son.”

“Fiddle!” said Vidal roughly. He put down his glass, the wine in it unfinished. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour, and he looked quickly round at it. “I must go. Why did you come? To tell me Quarles is as good as dead? I knew it.”

“No, not for that,” Léonie replied. “I think—I think there is a billet for you from Monseigneur.”

The Marquis’s laugh held a note of recklessness. “Be sure. I have it in my pocket. Inform him, madame, that I shall wait upon him in the morning.”

There was real trouble in Léonie’s face. “Dominique, you do not seem to me to understand at all. Monseigneur is enraged. He says you must leave the country, and, oh, my dear one, I beg you not to anger him any more! You should wait on him at once.”

“Who told him?” Vidal answered. “You, Rupert?”

“Fiend seize you, do you take me for a tale-bearer? You young fool, he saw it!”

The frowning eyes stared at him. “What the devil do you mean?”

“You’d no sooner got clear of the place—and a pretty turmoil you left behind you, I can tell you—than in walks Avon with Hugh Davenant.” Lord Rupert, apparently overcome by the recollection, mopped his brow with his fine lace handkerchief.

“What, at five o’clock in the morning?” demanded the Marquis.

“It wasn’t as much as that, not but what I thought myself ’twas the wine got into my head when I clapped eyes on him. He’d been at Old White’s all night, d’ye see, playing pharaoh, and the devil put it into his head to call in at Timothy’s, to see what sort of a hell it was that his precious son had honoured with his patronage. ‘And I perceive,’ said he, ‘that it is indeed something beyond the common.’ Now I put it to you, Vidal, isn’t it Avon all over to walk in pat like that?”

The frown was lifting. A gleam shone in the Marquis’s eyes. “Of course it was inevitable. Tell me it all.”

“Lord, I was so rattled, I don’t know what happened. There was young Comyn holding a napkin to the wound you’d blown through Quarles’s chest, and someone splashing water about, and Wraxall shouting for the porter to run for a surgeon, and the rest of us in the devil of a fluster, and all at once I saw Avon standing in the doorway with his glass held up to his eye, and Davenant gaping beside him. Well, you know how it is when your father is about. There was an end to the noise; everyone was watching Avon, save Comyn—I’d say that lad is a cool hand—who went on staunching the blood as calm as you please. If you ask me, Avon saw the whole at a glance, but he chose to look all round, mighty bland, and then down at Quarles. Then he says to Davenant: ‘I was informed, my dear Hugh, that Timothy’s was unlike other hells. And I perceive,’ says he—but I told you that bit. Of course, if I’d had my wits about me, I’d have left by the window, but I don’t deny I had a deal of champagne in me. Well, your father turned his infernal quizzing-glass towards me. I was waiting for that. ‘I suppose,’ says he, ‘I need not ask where is my son.’” Lord Rupert shook his head wisely. “Y’know, he’s devilish acute, Vidal; you must grant him that.”

“I do,” said his lordship, with the ghost of a laugh. “Go on, what next? I wish I had seen all this.”

“Do you, begad?” said his uncle. “You might have had my place for the asking. Well, I said you’d gone. Young Comyn took it up in that finicky voice of his. ‘I apprehend, sir,’ says he, that his lordship is by now upon the road to Newmarket.’ Avon turns his glass on him at that. ‘Indeed!’ says he, devilish polite. I fear my son has untidy habits. This gentleman’—and he points his quizzing-glass at Quarles—this gentleman—I think unknown to me—is no doubt his latest victim?’ I can’t give you his tone, but you know how he says things like that, Vidal.”

“None better. Oh, but I make him my compliments. He comes off with the honours. Did he make my apologies?”

“Well, now you mention it, I believe he did,” said Rupert. “But he divided the honours with that Comyn lad. We’d all lost our tongues. But Comyn says—which I thought handsome of him—‘As to that, sir, the late affair was in a sort forced upon his lordship. I believe, sir, no man could swallow what was said, though I am bound to confess that neither of the principals was sober.’ And I thought to myself, well, you must be damned sober, my lad, to get all that out without so much as a stammer.”

The Marquis’s face showed his interest. “Said that, did he? Mighty kind of him.” He shrugged, half smiling. “Or mighty clever.”

Léonie, who had been gazing into the fire, raised her head at that. “Why was it clever?”

“Madame, I spoke a thought aloud.” He looked at the clock again. “I can’t stay longer. Tell my father I will wait on him in the morning. To-night I have an engagement I can’t break.”

“Dominique, don’t you understand that if that man dies, you must not be in England?” Léonie cried. “Monseigneur says that this time there will be trouble. It has happened too often.”

“So I’m to make off like a scared mongrel, eh? I think not!” He bent over her hand for a moment. “Pray do not show that anxious face to the world, maman; it accords very ill with our dignity.”

to another moment he was gone. Léonie looked dolefully at Lord Rupert. “Do you suppose it is that bourgeoise, Rupert?”

“Devil a doubt!” said his lordship glumly. “But I’ll tell you what, Léonie; if we can pack him off to France there’ll be an end to that affair.”

It was as well for his peace of mind that he did not follow his nephew that evening. The Marquis stayed only to change his mud-stained garments, and was off again within twenty minutes, bound for the Theatre Royal. The play was more than half over, and in one of the boxes Sophia Challoner displayed a pouting countenance. Eliza Matcham had been twitting her the whole evening on the non-appearance of her fine beau, and she was in no very good humour. Her sister, with Cousin Joshua assiduously at her elbow, said tranquilly that the Marquis could hardly be expected to come after the happenings of the night before.

For the tale of the duel had spread like wildfire, so that the backwash of the sea of rumour had already reached Miss Challoner’s ears. It had also reached those of Cousin Joshua, who was not slow to say what he thought of the profligate Marquis. Sophia told him sharply that it was presumption in him to judge one so far above him, and by the time he had thought out a suitable retort, she had turned her white shoulder, and was talking with great vivacity to Mr. Matcham. Cousin Joshua addressed the rest of his homily to Miss Challoner, who listened in silence. Her gaze was so abstracted that he was beginning to suspect her of inattention. Then he observed a change in her expression. She stiffened, and her eyes grew intent and widened a little. Even Joshua could not suppose that this sudden interest was caused by his discourse, and he turned his head to see what had caught her eye.

“Upon my soul!” he said, puffing out his cheeks. “Shameless! If he has the effrontery to approach Sophia I shall know how to act.”

The Marquis of Vidal was standing in the pit, raking the boxes with his quizzing-glass.

A laugh trembled on Miss Challoner’s lips. Shameless? Of course he was shameless, but he was sublimely unconscious of it, unconscious too of the notice he was attracting from all who recognized him.

Mary looked at her cousin at last. “That is just as well, Joshua,” she said, “for I think he is going to approach her now.”

Mr. Simpkins saw the Marquis elbowing his way through the crowd in the pit, and tugged at Sophia’s sleeve. “Cousin!” said he, “I cannot but consider myself responsible for you, and I forbid you to speak with that profligate.”

This had not quite the desired effect. Sophia’s pout turned to an expression of sparkling eagerness. “Oh, is he here? Where? I do not see him. I knew he would never fail me. How I shall scold him for being so late!”

The Marquis had disappeared from the floor of the house by this time, and in a few minutes his knock fell on the door of the box, and he entered.

Sophia greeted him with a smile that reproached and yet beckoned. “Why, is it you indeed, my lord? I vow I had given you up. La, we have been hearing such tales of you! I declare I am half afraid of you.”

“Are you? Why?” inquired his lordship, kissing her hand. “Do you think I would hurt anything half so pretty as you?”

“Oh, lord, I don’t know what you might not do if I angered you,” laughed Sophia.

“Then don’t anger me,” advised the Marquis. “Walk with me in the corridor instead. The curtain won’t go up for a few minutes yet.”

“No, but do you know this is the fifth act? Positively, you have only come in time to hear the end of the play, and the farce.”

“Well, you had better instruct me in what it is all about,” said his lordship coolly.

“You don’t deserve that I should,” Sophia said, getting up from her chair. “Well, if I do walk with you outside, it will only be for a moment.”

Mr. Simpkins cleared his throat portentously, attracting the Marquis’s somewhat bored notice. “You spoke, sir?” Vidal said with so much haughtiness that Mr. Simpkins became flustered, and stammered something quite inaudible.

The Marquis smiled a little, and was just about to leave the box, with Sophia on his arm, when he caught sight of Miss Challoner’s flushed countenance. His brows lifted slightly. What the devil was the girl blushing for? She looked up as though she felt his gaze upon her, and her eyes met his steadily for a moment. He read disdain in them, and was amused, and asked Sophia as soon as they were out of the box what he had done to offend her sister.

She shrugged up her pretty shoulders. “Oh, sister doesn’t approve of your dreadful wicked ways, my lord.”

He suffered from a moment’s surprise. Nothing in Sophia, or her mamma and cousins had led him to suspect that her sister was likely to be strait-laced. Mrs. Challoner he wrote down as an elderly harpy; the Matchams were frankly vulgar. He laid his right hand on Sophia’s, lying on his arm. “Strait-laced, is she? Are you so, too?”

She raised her eyes to his, and saw them gleaming with some light that both frightened and excited her. Her colour fluctuated deliriously. The Marquis shot a quick look up and down the deserted corridor, and caught Sophia hard against his breast. “One kiss!” he said in a voice made suddenly husky with passion, and took it. She made a half-hearted struggle to break free. “Oh, my lord!” she protested. “Oh, no, you must not!” He had her fast round the waist, and with his free hand he cupped her chin, holding her head up so that he might look into her face. “You can’t keep me at arm’s length for ever, you little beauty. I want you. Will you come to me?”

The direct attack flustered her. She began to say: “I don’t know what you mean,” but he interrupted her: “Everything of the most dishonourable. Remember that, my pretty dear, for I don’t cheat, at love or cards.”

Her lips formed a soundless “oh” of astonishment. He kissed them, and partly from nervousness (for he had shaken her) and partly from coquetry, she giggled. He had no further doubts, but laughed back at her. She had an odd fancy, unusual in one so matter-of-fact, that little devils danced in his eyes. “I see we understand each other,” he said. “Listen to me now. I take it you’ve heard of last night’s affair? I may have to leave the country for a spell in consequence.”

She broke in with a little cry of dismay. “Leave the country? Oh, no, my lord!”

“I won’t leave you, my pretty, I promise. I’ve a mind to take you to Paris with me. Will you come?”

The colour flooded her cheeks. “Paris!” she gasped. “Oh, Vidal! Oh, my lord! Paris!” To hear it spelled gaiety, fine dresses, trinkets, all that she craved of life. He had no difficulty in reading her thoughts. “I’m rich; you shall have all the pretty things your own prettiness deserves. I’ll hire an h6tel for you; as its mistress you will play the hostess to my friends; in France these arrangements are understood. I know of a dozen such establishments. Do you choose to come with me, or not?”

Her native hardheadedness made her play for time, but her imagination was already running riot. The picture he drew lured her; she thought recklessly that she cared very little for the marriage-tie if she could live in Paris, where such arrangements, Vidal said, were understood. “How can I answer you, my lord? You—I protest you take me by surprise. I must have time!”

“There is no time. If Quarles dies, it’s farewell to England for me. Give me your answer now, or kiss me and say goodbye.”

She had only one steadfast thought, and that was that she would not let him slip through her fingers. “No, no, you cannot be so cruel!” she said with a tiny sob.

He was quite unmoved, but his hot gaze seemed to devour her. “I must. Come! Are you afraid of me that you hesitate?”

She drew away from him, a hand at her breast. “Yes, I am afraid,” she said breathlessly. “You force me—you are cruel ...”

“You need not be afraid: I adore you. Will you come?”

“If—if I say no?”

“Then let us kiss and part,” he said.

“No, no, I cannot leave you like that! I—oh, if you say I must, I will come with you!”

Rather to her surprise he showed neither rapture nor relief. He said only: “It will be soon. I will send you word to your lodgings.”

“Soon?” she faltered.

“To-morrow, Friday—I can’t say. You need bring nothing but the clothes you stand in.”

She gave an excited laugh. “An elopement! Oh, but how shall I contrive to slip off with you?”

“I’ll spirit you away safe enough,” he said, smiling.

“How? Where must I meet you?”

“I will let you know. But, remember, no word of this to a soul, and when you hear from me do exactly what I shall tell you.”

“I will,” she promised, larger and more mercenary issues for the moment forgotten.

When she returned to the box, alone, the curtain had already gone up on the fifth act. She was still flushed by excitement, and met her sister’s look with a defiant toss of her head. Let Mary frown if she would: Mary had no brilliant future before her; Mary might consider herself fortunate if she caught Cousin Joshua for a husband. Sophia gave herself to ecstatic imaginings.

The Marquis, meanwhile, betook himself to Timothy’s and created a sensation.

“Good God, it’s Vidal!” ejaculated Lord Cholmondley.

Mr. Fox, who was playing piquet with him, tranquilly dealt a fresh hand. “Why not?” he inquired.

“Cold-blooded devil!” marvelled Cholmondley.

Mr. Fox looked bored, and waved a languid hand at the Marquis.

Vidal was standing just inside the card-room, apparently surveying the company. There was just a moment when all play was suspended, and heads turned in his direction. The sudden silence was broken by an inebriated gentleman seated by the window, who called out: “Hey, Vidal, what time did you make? Laid a monkey you’d not do it under the four hours.”

“You have lost your stake, my lord,” said the Marquis. He perceived Mr. Fox, and began to make his leisurely way across the room to his table.

A hum of talk broke out. Many disapproving glances were cast at Vidal’s tall figure, but he seemed unaware of them and passed to Mr. Fox’s side, a picture of cool unconcern.

Cholmondley had laid down his cards. “Is that true?” he demanded. “You made it in the four hours?”

The Marquis smiled. “I made it in three hours and forty-four minutes, my dear.”

“Man, you were drunk!” Cholmondley cried. “I’d say it was impossible!”

“Ask the judges,” shrugged the Marquis. “I warned you that I drive best when I am drunk.” He was watching the next table as he spoke. Loo was being played, but someone was leaving, and the party was broken up. The Marquis raised his voice slightly, addressing one of the players. “A hand of piquet, Mr. Comyn?”

Mr. Comyn turned his head quickly. A flicker of surprise showed in his face. He bowed. “I shall count myself honoured, my lord.”

Vidal strolled over to his table and waited while a waiter put fresh cards and placed chairs.

“Cut, Mr. Comyn,” said the Marquis.

Mr. Comyn obeyed, and won the deal.

“The usual stakes?” drawled the Marquis.

Mr. Comyn met his eye firmly. “Whatever you will, my lord.”

Vidal laughed suddenly, and abandoned his drawl. “We’ll play for love, Mr. Comyn.”

Mr. Comyn paused in the middle of his deal. “I can scarcely suppose, my lord, that that would amuse you.”

“Not in the least,” grinned the Marquis.

“Or me, my lord.”

“I never gamble in the family,” explained Vidal.

Mr. Comyn jumped. “Sir?”

“Well, sir?”

Mr. Comyn carefully laid down the pack. “Do I understand you to mean that you favour my suit, my lord?”

“Devilish precise, ain’t you?” commented Vidal. “I suppose if Juliana wants you she’ll have you. Get it out of your head that I have anything to do with it. It don’t concern me.”

Mr. Comyn leaned back in his chair. “I apprehend, my lord, that to play piquet with me was not your object in singling me out to-night.”

“Oh, I’ll play,” said his lordship. “But I don’t fleece my relatives, and I don’t care to be fleeced by ’em. Call it ten shillings a hundred.”

“Certainly—if that satisfies you,” said Mr. Comyn.

The Marquis’s eye twinkled. “Oh, I’m quite sober to-night.”

Mr. Comyn completed the deal and said slowly: “Without wishing to be guilty of impoliteness, my lord, your temper is such that I should not wish to play with you were you not sober.”

“Much wiser not,” agreed Vidal, putting down his discard. “Four only. You think I might blow a hole through you?”

Mr. Comyn picked up the remaining four cards. “Oh, surely not—in the family, my lord?”

Vidal laughed. “Egad, I think you’d better make all speed to Paris and abduct Juliana. You will do very well in our family. If you want my advice, let me recommend you to better your acquaintance with my father. I’ve a strong notion he might approve your suit. A point of six, a quinte, and three aces. Six played.”

Mr. Comyn drew six cards from his hand with some deliberation. “Taking into consideration, sir, the unfortunate circumstances under which I made his grace’s acquaintance—if such I can call it—I cannot suppose that a further meeting with me could be anything but repugnant to him.”

“It is evident,” retorted his lordship, “that you don’t know much of my father.” He played the rest of the hand in silence, but as the cards were gathered up he said: “I have it from my uncle that you in some sort upheld me last night. I’m obliged to you. Why did you do it? Policy? You don’t exactly love me, do you?”

A smile disturbed Mr. Comyn’s gravity. “On the contrary, my lord, I was under the impression that I detested you, but I believe I have an innate passion for justice.”

“I thought as much,” said the Marquis. “But to-day you find that I can be quite agreeable, and you reserve judgment.”

“True,” said Mr. Comyn thoughtfully. “Yet I confess that from tune to time I find your manner calculated to arouse feelings of animosity in my breast.”

“Alas!” said his lordship. “Let us again endeavour. Sir, you were kind enough to speak in my defence yesterday. I am probably your debtor, since I dare say my respected father may have believed you. At any other season I might have put in a word for you to his grace, but I don’t imagine my word will carry much weight with him at the moment. Failing that, I make you a present of my advice. Marry my cousin out of hand. You won’t get her else.”

Mr. Comyn’s brow wrinkled. “So I have been given to understand. Yet I fail to see why Lady Fanny should consider my suit so ineligible. I do not desire to make a brag of my estate, but though not noble I believe it is not disgraceful, nor is my fortune contemptible. I am heir to a baronetcy of—”

“You may be heir to a dozen baronetcies,” interrupted Vidal, “but you can’t compete with the heir to a dukedom.”

Mr. Comyn looked a question. “Myself,” said the Marquis. “Failing me, some other—if I know my aunt. She’s looking high, you see, and she’s a damned obstinate woman.”

“But, sir, to persuade Miss Marling into a runaway marriage is a course savouring strongly of the dishonourable.”

“She won’t need any persuading,” said his lordship callously. “And she hasn’t a fortune, so you needn’t fear to be thought an adventurer. You’ll do as you please about it, but that’s my advice.”

Mr. Comyn gathered up his hand and began to sort the cards.. “I must thank you, I suppose, but anything in the nature of irregularity, or clandestine conduct, is distasteful to me—especially in this delicate affair.”

“Then you shouldn’t ally yourself with my family,” replied his lordship.

Chapter VI

the Marquis of Vidal had not expected to enjoy his interview with Avon, but it turned out to be more unpleasant than he was prepared for. To begin with, his grace was writing at his desk when Vidal was ushered into the room, and although the lackey quite loudly announced his lordship, his fine hand continued to travel across the paper, and he neither looked up nor betrayed by even the smallest sign that he had heard the announcement.

The Marquis paused for a moment on the threshold, eyeing him; then he walked across to the fireplace and stretched one elegantly shod foot to the warmth. To all appearances he was thoughtfully observing the extremely high polish on his top boot, but once he put up his hand to the Mechlin lace round his throat, and gave it a tug as though it were too tight.

He was dressed with unusual care, possibly out of deference to his grace’s known views, but, as was his habit in the forenoon, for riding. His buff breeches were of impeccable cut, his coat of blue cloth with silver buttons was somewhat severe, but admirably became his tall person. His fringed cravat was for once very neatly arranged, the ends thrust through a gold buttonhole, and his black locks strictly confined by a thin black riband. He wore no jewellery save a heavy gold signet ring, and his face was innocent of the patches and powder affected by the Macaronis.

The Duke had finished writing, and was now reading his letter through with maddening deliberation. Vidal felt his temper rising, and set his teeth. Having made some slight alteration in his letter, the Duke folded it, and dipping his quill in the standish, began to write the direction. Without turning his head he said: “You may sit down, Vidal.”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll stand,” replied his lordship curtly.

The Duke laid his letter aside, ready for sealing, and at last turned, shifting his chair so that he could survey his son. Vidal found himself wishing, for perhaps the hundredth time in his life, that it was possible to read his father’s expression.

The eyes, faintly disdainful, travelled from Vidal’s boots to his face, and there stayed. “I suppose I should count myself honoured that you have been able to visit me,” said his grace gently.

There did not seem to be anything to say in answer to this. After a moment’s uncomfortable silence the Duke continued: “Your presence in England is extremely—shall we say enlivening?—Vidal. But I believe I shall survive the loss of it.” At that the Marquis spoke. “Is he dead then?” Avon’s brows rose in polite surprise. “Is it possible that you don’t know?”

“I don’t, sir.”

“I envy you your light-heartedness,” said Avon. “So far, as I am aware the gentleman still lives. Whether he continues to do so or not is a question that does not at the moment concern me. It will make very little difference to you. Three months ago I warned you that your next killing would prove serious. You will allow me to point out that it is never wise to disregard my warnings.”

“Certainly, sir. I take it I may have to stand my trial?”

“Not at all,” said his grace coldly. “I am still somebody. But you may take it that for some appreciable time to come your residence will be upon the Continent. An affair of honour, conducted honourably, might have been condoned. A pot-house brawl can only be—one trusts—eventually forgotten.”

The Marquis flushed. “One moment, sir. My affairs, whether settled at Barn Elms or in a pot-house, are still honourably conducted.”

“I make you my apologies,” replied Avon, slightly inclining his head. “You must forgive my declining years, which make it difficult for me to appreciate the manners of your generation. In my day we did not fight in gaming-hells, or when we were in our cups.”

“A mistake, sir, I admit. I am sorry for it.”

The Duke looked at him sardonically. “I am not in the least interested in your emotions, Vidal. What I object to is that you have had the impertinence to disturb your mother. That I do not permit. You will leave England at once.”

Vidal was very pale, and a muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched. “Ill stand my trial, I believe.”

The Duke put up his glass and surveyed Vidal through it “You do not appear to have much understanding of the situation,” he remarked. “You will leave England, not to save your neck, nor because it is my will, but to spare your mother any further anxiety concerning your safety. I trust I make myself plain?”

Vidal looked at him with hard defiant eyes. Then he strode restlessly to the window and back again. “Quite plain. Yet if I say I’ll not go, what then?”

“I should regret the necessity of course, but I should—er—contrive your departure willy-nilly.”

The Marquis gave a short laugh. “Egad, I believe you would! I’ll go.”

“You had better bid your mother good-bye,” recommended his grace. “You will reach the coast quite easily by to-night.”

“Just as you please, sir,” Vidal said indifferently. He picked up his hat and gloves from the table. “Is there anything more you desire to say to me?”

“Very little,” Avon answered. “Your restraint is quite admirable. I applaud it.”

“I thought it was my lack of it that had offended your sensibilities, sir,” said Vidal grimly. “You go too fast for me.”

Avon smiled. “You must not think me witless, my dear boy. I am perfectly aware that you would like to throw my extremely reprehensible past in my teeth.”

“I confess, sir, I find your homily a little ironic.”

“Quite amusing, is it not?” agreed his grace. “I am perfectly sensible of it. But the road I travelled is not the road I should desire my son to take. And you will no doubt agree that a liberal experience of vice gives me some right to judge.” He rose and came to the fire. “Concerning more immediate matters, you may draw upon Foley’s in Paris, of course.”

“Thank you, sir, I have enough for my needs,” the Marquis said stiffly.

“I compliment you. You are certainly the first Alastair ever to say so. You will find your mother upstairs.”

“Then I’ll take my leave of you, sir,” Vidal said. “Accept my apologies for the inconvenience I may have caused you.” He bowed, unsmiling, and turned sharp on his heel. As he jerked open the door, Avon spoke again. “By the way, Vidal, does my record still stand?”

The Marquis looked back over his shoulder, frowning. “Your record, sir?”

“Three hours and forty-seven minutes was my time,” said his grace pensively.

An unwilling laugh broke from Vidal. “No, sir, your record does not stand.”

“I thought not,” said Avon. “May I be permitted to know the new record?”

“Three hours and forty-four minutes. But the curricle was specially designed.”

“So was mine,” said Avon. “I am glad you bettered my time. If I were twenty years younger—”

“I beg you will not attempt it, ski” said the Marquis quickly. He hesitated; the stormy look was still in his face, but his eyes had softened.

“Pray do not do violence to your feelings,” Avon said. “You will find me remarkably hard to wound.”

The Marquis let go the door handle, and came back to his father’s side. “I beg your pardon, sir.” He took Avon’s thin hand in his, and bent to touch it with his lips. “Adieu, mon père.”

“Let us say, rather, au revoir,” Avon answered. “I will spare you my blessing which I cannot conceive would benefit you in the least.”

Upon which they parted, each one understanding the other tolerably well. Vidal’s interview with his mother lasted much longer, and was to him even more unpleasant. Léonie had no reproaches for him, but she was plainly unhappy, and the Marquis hated to see his mother unhappy.

“It’s my damnable temper, maman,” he said ruefully.

She nodded. “I know. That is why I am feeling very miserable. It is no good people saying you are a devil like all the Alastairs, because me, I know that it is my temper that you have, mon pauvre. You see, there is very black blood in my family.” She shook her head sadly. “M. de Saint-Vire—my father, you understand—was of a character the most abominable. And hot-headed! He shot himself in the end, which was a very good thing. He had red hair like mine.”

“I haven’t that excuse,” said her son, grinning.

“No, but you behave just as I should like to when I am enraged,” Léonie said candidly. “When I_was young I was very fond of shooting people dead. Of course, I never did shoot anyone, but I wanted to—oh, often! I meant to shoot my father once—which shocked Rupert—it was when M. de Saint-Vire kidnapped me, and Rupert saved me—only Mon-seigneur arrived, and he would not at all permit it.” She paused, wrinkling her brow. “You see, Dominique, I am not a respectable person, and you are not a respectable person either. And I did want you to be.”

“I’m sorry, maman. But I don’t come of respectable stock, either side.”

“Ah, but the Alastairs are quite different,” Léonie said quickly. “No one minds if you have affaires. Of course, if you are a very great rake people say you are a devil, but it is quite in the mode and entirely respectable. Only when you do things that other people do not do, like you, and make scandals, then at once you are not respectable.”

He looked down at her half-smiling. “What am I to do, maman? If I made you a promise to become respectable I am very sure I should break it.”

She slipped her hand in his. “Well, I have been thinking, Dominique, that perhaps the best thing would be for you to be in love and marry somebody,” she said confidentially. “I do not like to say this, but it is true that before he married me, Monseigneur was a very great rake. A vrai dire, his reputation was what one does not talk about. When he made me his page, and then his ward, it was not to be kind, but because he wanted to be revenged upon M. de Saint-Vire. Only then he found that he would like to marry me, and do you know, ever since he has not been a rake at all, or done anything particularly dreadful that I can remember.”

“But I could never hope to find another woman like you, maman. If I could I promise you I’d marry her.”

“Then you would make a great mistake,” said Léonie wisely. “I am not at all the sort of wife for you.”

He did not pursue the subject. He was with her for an hour and more; it seemed as though she could not let him go. At last he wrenched himself away, knowing that for all her brave smiles she would weep her heart out once he was gone. He had given his word to her that he would leave London that night; he had much to do in the few hours left to him. His servants were sent flying on various errands, one to Newhaven to warn the captain of his yacht, the Albatross, that his lordship would sail for France next day, another to his bankers, a third to a quiet house in Blooms-bury with a billet, hastily scrawled.

This was delivered to an untidy abigail who received it in a hand hastily wiped upon her apron. She shut the door upon the messenger, and stood turning the heavily sealed letter over in her hand. Sealed with a crest it was; she wouldn’t be surprised if it came from the handsome lord that was running after Miss Sophy, only that it was directed to Miss Challoner.

Miss Challoner was coming down the stairs with her marketing-basket on her arm, and her chip hat tied over her curls. Miss Challoner, for all she was better educated than her sister, was not too grand to do the shopping. She had constituted herself housekeeper to the establishment soon after her return from the seminary, and even Mrs. Challoner admitted that she had the knack of making the money last longer than ever it had done before.

“What is it, Betty?” Mary asked, pulling on her gloves.

“It’s a letter, miss, brought by a footman. For you,” added Betty, in congratulatory tones. Betty did not think it was fair that Miss Sophy should have all the beaux, for Miss Mary was a much nicer-spoken lady, if only the gentlemen had the sense to see it.

“Oh?” said Mary, rather surprised. She took the letter. “Thank you.” Then she saw the direction, and recognized Vidal’s bold handwriting. “But this is—” She stopped. It was adressed to Miss Challoner sure enough. “Ah yes! I remember,” she said calmly, and slipped it into her reticule.

She went on out of the house, and down the street. It was Vidal’s hand; not a doubt of that. Not a doubt either that it was intended for her sister. The scrawled direction indicated that the note had been written in haste; it would be very like the Marquis to forget the existence of an elder sister, thought Mary with a wry smile.

She was a little absent-minded over the marketing, and came back with slow steps to the house. She ought to give the billet to Sophia, of course. Even as she admitted that, she realized that she would not give it to her, had never meant to from the moment it had been put into her hand. There had been an air of suppressed excitement about Sophia all the morning; she was full of mystery and importance, and had twice hinted at wonders in store for her, but when questioned she had only laughed, and said that it was a secret. Mary was anxious as she had not been before; this letter—and after all it was certainly directed to herself—might throw a little light on Sohpia’s secret.

It threw a great deal of light. Safe upstairs in her bedroom, Mary broke open the seal, and spread out the single thick sheet of paper.

“Love—” the Marquis began—“It is for to-night. My coach will be at the bottom of your street at eleven. Join me there and bring nothing that you cannot hide beneath your cloak. Vidal.”

Miss Challoner’s hand crept to her cheek in a little frightened gesture she had had from a child. She sat staring at the brief note till the words seemed to start at her from the page. Just that curt command to decide Sophia’s future! Lord, but he must be sure of her! No word of love, though he called her by that sweet name; no word of coaxing; no entreaty to her not to fail him. Did he know then that she would go with him? Was this what they had arranged in that stolen interview last night?

Miss Challoner started up, crumpling the letter in her clenched hand. Something must be done and done quickly. She could burn the message, but if Sophia failed Vidal tonight, would there not be another to-morrow? She had no notion where Vidal meant to take her sister. A coach: that meant some distance. Doubtless he had a discreet house in the country. Or did he intend to cheat Sophia with a pretended flight to Gretna Green?

She sat down again, mechanically smoothing out the letter. It was of no use to show it to her mother; she knew from Sophia what absurd dreams Mrs. Challoner cherished, knew enough of that lady, too, to believe her capable of the crowning folly of winking at an elopement. Her uncle could do nothing, as far as she could see, and she had no wish to blazon Sophia’s loose behaviour abroad. When the idea first came to her she did not know; she thought it must have been hidden away in her brain for a long while, slowly maturing. Again her hand stole to her cheek. It was so daring it frightened her. I can’t! she thought. I can’t!

The idea persisted. What could he do after all? What had she to fear from him? He was hot-tempered, but she could not suppose that he would actually harm her, however violent his rage.

She would need to act a part, a loathsome part, but if she could do it it would end the Marquis’s passion for Sophia as nothing else could. She found that she was trembling. He will think me as light as Sophia! she reflected dismally, and at once scolded herself. It did not matter what he thought of her. And Sophia? What would she say? Into what transports of fury would she not fall? Well, that did not signify either. It would be better to bear Sophia’s hatred than to see her ruined.

She consulted the letter. Eleven o’clock was the hour appointed. She remembered that she was to spend the evening with her mother and sister at Henry Simpkins’ house, and began to lay her plans.

There was a table by the window with her writing-desk upon it. She drew up a chair to it, and began to write, slowly, with many pauses.

“Mamma—” she began, as abruptly as the Marquis—

“I have gone with Lord Vidal in Sophia’s place. His letter came to my hand instead of hers; you will see how desperate is the case, for it is plain he has no thought of marriage. I have a plan to show him she is not to be had so easily. Do not be afraid for my safety or my honour, even tho’ I may not reach home again till very late.”She read this through, hesitated, and then signed her name. She dusted the sheet, folded it up with the Marquis’s note to Sophia, and sealed it, directing it to her mother.

Neither Mrs. Challoner nor Sophia made much demur at leaving her behind that evening. Mrs. Challoner thought, to be sure, that it was a pity she must needs have a sick headache on this very evening when Uncle Henry had promised the young people a dance, but she made no attempt to persuade her into accompanying them.

Miss Challoner lay in bed with the hartshorn in her hand, and watched Sophia dress for the party.

“Oh, what do you think, Mary?” Sophia chattered. “My uncle has contrived to get Dennis O’Halloran to come. I do think he is too dreadfully handsome, do you not?”

“Handsomer than Vidal?” said Mary, wondering how Sophia could prefer the florid good looks of Mr. O’Halloran to Vidal’s dark stern beauty.

“Oh well, I never did admire black hair, you know,” Sophia replied. “And Vidal is so careless. Only fancy, sister, nothing will induce him to wear a wig, and even when he does powder his hair the black shows through.”

Mary raised herself on her elbow. “Sophy, you don’t love him, do you?” she said anxiously.

Sophia shrugged and laughed. “La, sister, how stupid you are with all that talk of love. It is not at all necessary to love a husband, let me tell you. I like him very well. I do not mean to love anyone very much, for I am sure it is more comfortable if one doesn’t. Do you like my hair dressed a la Venus?”

Mary relaxed again, satisfied. When Sophia and her mother had left the house she lay for a while, thinking. Betty came in with her supper on a tray. Her appetite seemed to have deserted her, and she sent the tray away again almost untouched. At ten o’clock Betty went up the steep stairs to her little chamber, and Mary got out of bed, and began to dress. Her fingers shook slightly as she struggled with laces and hooks, and she felt rather cold. A search through one of Sohpia’s drawers, redolent of cedar-chips, brought to light a loo-mask, once worn at a carnival. She put it on, and thought, peering at herself in the mirror, how oddly her eyes glittered through the slits.

She had some of the housekeeping money in her reticule; not very much but enough for her needs, she hoped. She hung the bag on her arm, put on a cloak, and pulled the hood carefully over her head.

On the way down the stairs she stopped at her mother’s room, and left the letter she had written on the dressing-table. Then she crept noiselessly down to the hall, and let herself out of the silent house.

The street was deserted, and a sharp wind whipped Mary’s cloak out behind her. She dragged it together, and holding it close with one hand, set off down the road. The night was cold, and overhead hurrying storm-clouds from time to time hid the moon.

Mary came round the bend in the street, and saw ahead of her the lights of a waiting chaise. She had an impulse to go back, but checked it, and walked resolutely on.

The light was very dim, but she was able as she drew closer to distinguish the outline of a travelling chaise drawn by four horses. She could see the postilions standing to the horses’ heads and another figure, taller than theirs, pacing up and down in the light thrown by the flambeaux burning before the corner house.

She came up to this figure soft-footed. He swung round and grasped at her hand, held out timidly towards him. “You’ve come!” he said, and kissed her fingers. They shook in his strong hold. He drew her towards the chaise, his arm round her shoulders. “You’re afraid? No need, my bird. I have you safe.” He saw that she was masked, and laughed softly. “Oh, my little romantic love, was that needful?” he mocked, and his hand went up to find the string of the mask.

She contrived to hold him off. “Not yet! Not here!” she whispered. He did not persist, but he still seemed amused. “No one will see you,” he remarked. “But keep it if you will.” He handed her up into the chaise. “Try to sleep, my pretty, you’ve a long way to travel, I fear.”

He sprang down from the step, and she realized with a shudder of relief that he was riding.

The chaise was very luxuriously upholstered, and there was a fur rug lying on the seat. Mary drew it over her, and leaned back in one corner. He had said she had a long way to travel. Could this mean the Scottish border after all? She suddenly thought that if Gretna was his goal, she had done her sister the greatest disservice imaginable.

She leaned forward, peering out of the window, but soon abandoned the attempt to mark their route. It was too dark, and she lacked the sense of direction that would have told her whether she was travelling northwards or not.

She had never ridden in a chaise so well sprung as this one. Even over the cobbled streets she was not conscious of any peculiar discomfort. She could catch no glimpse of her escort, and supposed that he must be riding behind. Presently a gleam of moonlight on water caught her eye, and she started forward to look out of the window once more. The chaise was crossing a bridge; she could see the Thames running beneath, and knew then that she must be travelling south. Gretna was not his goal. She felt a paradoxical relief.

Once clear of the town the horses seemed to leap forward in their collars. For a little while Mary felt alarmed at the wicked pace, expecting every moment some accident, but after a time she grew accustomed to it, and even dozed a little, lulled by the sway of the coach.

A sudden halt jerked her awake. She saw lights, and heard voices and the trampling of hooves. She supposed the tune of reckoning had come, and waited, outwardly calm, to be handed down from the coach. The moon was visible, but when she tried to discover where she was she could see only a signboard swinging in the wind, and knew that the equipage had merely stopped to change horses. The door of the chaise was pulled open, and she drew back into the corner. Vidal’s voice spoke softly: “Awake, little Patience?”

She stayed still, not answering him. If she had the courage she would disclose her identity now, she thought. She shrank from it, visualizing the scene, at night on a windy road, with sniggering ostlers to witness it.

She heard a low laugh, and the click of the door as it was shut again. The Marquis had gone, and in a moment whips cracked, and the chaise moved forward.

She slept no more, but sat bolt upright, clasping her hands in her lap. Once she caught a glimpse of a rider abreast of the coach window, but he drew ahead, and she did not see him again.

They halted for the second time presently, but the change of horses was accomplished in a twinkling, and no one came to the chaise door. A cold grey light informed her that the dawn was approaching. She had not anticipated that her imposture would remain undetected for so long, and wondered uneasily how far into the day it would be before she reached home again.

As the light grew the ulterior of the chaise became dimly visible. She observed a holster within easy reach of her hand, and with calm forethought, possessed herself of the pistol it contained. It was rather large for her small hand, and having very little knowledge of firearms she had no idea whether it was loaded or not. She managed to put it into the big pocket of her cloak. It made the cloak very heavy, but she felt safer. The quivering alarm that had possessed her from the start of this queer journey began to leave her. She discovered that her hands were now quite steady, and felt that she could face whatever was to come with tolerable composure. She began to chafe at the length of the journey, and wondered with a kind of detached interest whether she had enough money in her reticule to pay for her return. She hoped she would be able to travel by the stage-coach to London. The hire of a chaise would be beyond her means, she was sure. That Vidal might convey her to her door again, never entered her head. Vidal was going to be far too angry to consider her plight.

At the next halt she caught sight of Vidal for a moment, as he mounted a fresh horse, but he did not come to the coach door. Apparently the lover was forgotten in his desire to press on. She had heard from Sophia that he travelled always at a break-neck pace, springing his horses; otherwise, she reflected, she might well have supposed that he was flying for his life.

Pale sunlight began at last to peep through the clouds. Mary tried to calculate how far they had journeyed, but could arrive at no satisfactory estimate. Houses came into sight, and presently the chaise swept into a cobbled street, and slackened speed.

A corner was turned. Mary saw a grey tumbling sea, and stared at it to bewilderment. That Vidal meant to carry Sophia out of England had never entered her head. She began to realize that such really was his intention, and remembering his late duel she felt that this possibility ought to have occurred to her before.

The chaise drew up with a lurch. She turned quickly from her contemplation of a yacht lying in the harbour and waited for the door to be opened.

Somebody let down the steps; it was Vidal who opened the door. “What, still masked?” he said. “I shall call you Prudence, love. Come!” He held out his hands to her, and before she could lay her fingers on his arm, caught her round the waist, and swung her lightly down. She had a momentary sensation of complete helplessness, and was annoyed to find that she liked it.

“In with you, sweetheart,” he said gaily. “There is just time for you to drink some coffee before I must bundle you aboard ship.”

A stout landlord was bowing her into the inn. Looking at him through the slits of her mask, she thought that she detected a sly expression on his discreet countenance, and concluded with a stab of anger, that she was not the first female Lord Vidal had brought to this inn. He ushered her into a parlour overlooking the sea, and stood bowing and smirking while Vidal delivered his orders. Mary walked to the fireplace, and stood there with her back turned.

“Yes, my lord, yes!” the landlord said. “Some coffee for the lady, and a roll, and a tankard of small-beer for your lordship. Yes, my lord; on the instant!”

“Let it be on the instant,” Vidal said, “or I miss the tide.”

“My lord, it shall be!” the landlord assured him, and bustled out.

Mary heard the door shut, and turned. Vidal had thrown down his whip and gloves, and was watching her in some amusement. “Well, Mistress Discretion?” he said. “Do you take off that mask, or must I?”

She put up her hands to the strings, and untied it. “I think it has served its turn,” she said composedly, and put back her hood.

The smile was wiped from his face; he stood staring at her. “What the devil—?” he began.

She took off her cloak and laid it carefully on a chair; she had quite forgotten her pistol, for she had a part to play. She tried to smile archly, as Sophia could, and hoped she did not boggle it.

“Oh, my lord, I vow you are too easy to trick!” she said, and tittered, quite in Sophia’s manner.

He strode up to her, and caught her wrists in a painful grasp. “I am, am I? We shall see, my girl. Where’s your sister?”

“La, where should she be but in her bed?” Mary answered. “Lord, how we laughed when she showed me your letter! She was all for playing some jest on you to punish you for your impudence. So we put our heads together, my lord, and hit on the very thing. Oh, she will die of laughing when I tell her how you never suspected ’twas I you had in the coach, and not her at all!” There was not a tremor in Miss Challoner’s voice as she spoke her part; she was all flippant vulgarity upon the surface. But under the surface, good God, is he going to murder me? she thought.

Murder certainly looked out of his eyes, his grip on her wrists made her wince. “A jest, is it?” he said. “Her jest—or yours? Answer me!”

Her rôle was hard to maintain, but she continued airily enough: “Oh well, to be sure ’twas I carried it through, and I dare say I should have thought of it if she had not.”

“She thought of it?” he interrupted.

She nodded. “Yes, but I did not at all like it at first, only when she threatened to get Eliza Matcham to go if I would not I consented.” She glanced up at him fleetingly, but dared not keep her eyes on his. “You need not think, my lord, that you can seduce Sophia so easily. She led you on finely, did she not? But when she found you’d no thought of marriage, she determined to teach you a lesson!”

“Marriage!” he said, and threw back his head and laughed. “Marriage! By God, that’s rich!”

Her cheeks were stained crimson. His laughter had a jeering, wicked ring; he looked like a devil, she thought. He let her go all at once, and cast himself down in a chair by the table. The murderous look had left his face, but in his half-closed eyes was a gleam that alarmed her more. The man meant mischief. His glance stripped her naked. Her cheeks grew hotter, and she saw that an ugly smile had curled his thin lips. His very attitude, while she still stood, was an insult. He lounged at his ease, one leg stretched out before him, a hand driven deep into his breeches pocket.

“You’ll forgive my amusement,” he drawled. “I suppose the truth is that Miss Sophia has found some other fool who offered more than I did, eh?”

She shrugged carelessly. “Oh, I tell no secrets, sir!”

The door opened and the landlord came in, followed by a serving-man with a tray. Miss Challoner walked over to the window while the cloth was laid. When they were alone again my lord said: “Your coffee—have I ever heard your name? Mary, isn’t it?”

She forgot her role, and said coldly: “I have not given you the right to use it, sir.”

Again he laughed. “My good girl, youVe given me whatever rights I choose to claim. Sit down.”

She remained where she was, eyeing him.

“Obstinate, eh? Ill tame you,” Vidal said, and got up.

She had an impulse to run from him, and curbed it. She was swept off her feet and dumped down, none too gently, on a chair by the table. A heavy hand on her shoulder kept her there. “You elected to come with me,” the Marquis said, “and by God you’ll obey me, if I have to lay my whip about your sides!”

He looked so grim that she could not but believe he would do as he threatened. She sat still and he removed his hand from her shoulder. “Drink your coffee,” he said. “You’ve not much time.”

Her hands were no longer quite steady, but she contrived to pour some coffee into the cup.

“Shaking, eh?” said that hateful voice. “I shan’t beat you if you behave yourself. Let me have a look at you.” He turned up her face with a careless hand under her chin. “You’re not so bad-looking after all,” he remarked. “I dare say we shall deal extremely together.”

She drank a little of the hot coffee; it put heart into her; she replied calmly: “Unfortunately we shall have no opportunity of judging. I go back to London by the first coach.”

“Oh no, my dear,” said his lordship. “You’ll go to Paris with me, in Sophia’s stead.”

She pushed her cup and saucer away from her. “You’re talking wildly, my lord. You won’t expect me to believe that it is me you want to run away with.”

“Why not?” said his lordship, coolly. “One wench is much like another after all.”

She sat very upright, her hands lightly folded in her lap. “You’ve been worsted, sir, but need you insult me?”

He laughed. “We’ll see who’s worsted when we reach the end of the jest, my girl. As to insults, egad! I wish you would tell me how I may insult so bold a piece as yourself. Don’t put on that missish face, my dear. It won’t serve after this night’s escapade.”

“You can’t take me to France,” she persisted. “You think because Sophia was indiscreet—that I—that we are loose women, but—”

“If you’re trying to make me believe in your virtue, you’re wasting your breath,” interrupted his lordship. “I knew what your sister was from the start, and as for you, whatever doubts I may have had you’ve set at rest. Virtuous young ladies, my dear, don’t lend themselves to these jests. I may not be very much to your taste, but if you contrive to please me, you won’t find me less generous than any other man.”

“You are unpardonable!” she said in a suffocated voice. She got up, and this time he made no effort to prevent her. “Have the goodness to tell me how far I am from London. What is this place?”

“Newhaven,” he replied, draining his tankard.

“Can I travel by stage-coach from here?”

“I’ve no idea,” said his lordship with a yawn. “It need not concern you. I meant what I said.”

“To take me to Paris? You’re absurd, my lord. Do you suppose I should make no outcry? In these days even a noble marquis could scarcely force a young female aboard his yacht.”

“Scarcely,” agreed his lordship. “But I can make you so damned drunk that you’ll be in no fit case to struggle, my girl.” He drew a flask from the pocket of his greatcoat and held it up. “Hollands,” he said briefly.

She was scandalized. “I think you are mad,” she said with conviction.

He got up and came towards her. “You can think what you like, Mary, but you’ll drink my Hollands.”

She moved back till the wall stayed her. “If you touch me, I’ll scream,” she warned him. “I don’t desire to make a scene, but I will.”

“Scream away,” he said. “You’ll find old Simon is very deaf—when he doesn’t want to hear.”

She was shrewd enough to know that the landlord would hesitate to interfere with his noble patron if he could avoid it, and felt suddenly very helpless. The Marquis towered over her, and it seemed likely that he really would force the contents of his flask down her throat. She said quietly: “Please do not make me drink that. I am not a shameless woman, my lord, though I must seem to be one. I can—I think I can make you understand, if you will listen to me.”

“I’ll listen to you later,” he replied. “There’s no time now.”

As though to corroborate him, someone knocked loudly at the door, and called: “My lord, we’ll miss the tide!”

“I’m coming,” he answered, and turned back to Mary. “Quickly, you!”

She held him off, both her hands clasping his wrist. “You need not make me drunk,” she said. “Since there’s no help for it I’ll come.”

“I thought you would,” said the Marquis with a grim little smile.

He turned away from her to the table, and picked up his tankard, and drained it. He never took his eyes off her, and she found herself unable to look boldly back at him as she would have liked to do. He set down the tankard as she came to pick up her cloak from the chair where she had laid it, and said with a drawling note in his voice: “You’ll see no one but my own fellows on the quay, but if you should be tempted to make a scene, remember I shall be beside you, and can throttle you before you’ve time to make more than one screech.”

He strolled over to her as she drew her cloak round her, and before she realized what he was about, he had grasped her arm, and taken her throat in one of his shapely hands. He let her feel what strength lay in his fingers, and though for dignity’s sake she forced herself to be passive the blood drummed unpleasantly in her head, and she felt herself to be in danger of losing her senses. “Like that,” the Marquis said, smiling mockingly down at her. He let her go, and she put up her hands to her bruised throat. “Unpleasant, eh?” he said. “If you force me to do it again you’ll find yourself unable to speak for quite a little while. Having throttled you—and I can do it in a flash, my dear—I shall carry you aboard, informing anyone who might chance to be about that you have swooned. Do you quite understand, wench?” The muscles of her throat felt stiff. She managed to say: “Perfectly, sir.”

“I thought you would,” he said softly. “Now come!” He dragged her arm through his, and led her to the door. The pistol in the pocket of her cloak knocked against her knee, and she remembered its existence with a start.

She did not think that she could pull it out with one hand, with the Marquis holding her other in his. She was very much afraid that it might go off if carelessly handled, nor had she any intention of firing it, and creating thereby the very scandal she wished to avoid. When she took it from its holster she had been prompted by no more than a vague notion that it might be well to possess a pistol. No plan of using it had entered her head; she had not even foreseen the need of it. It was too late now, but at the first opportunity she would manage to extricate it from the coat pocket into which it fitted so tightly.

The Marquis led her out. He stopped in the coffee-room to pay his bill. The landlord was all obsequious attention. Miss Challoner made a mental resolve never again to set foot in Newhaven.

She accompanied the Marquis, willy-nilly, out on to the quay. White horses raised their crests in the troubled sea; Miss Challoner eyed them with inward trepidation. Then she saw the graceful yacht she had observed from the coach; it was heaving on the water even in the shelter of the quay. Miss Challoner began to feel squeamish, and glanced imploringly up at the dark face above her.

My lord paid not the slightest attention, but compelled her to walk down the gangway on to the deck of the Albatross. She was aware of a few curious looks from some rough-looking men who were busy with a maze of ropes, but his lordship marched her past these to a steep companion-way. Evidently feeling that she was incapable of negotiating it, he tossed her up over his shoulder, and so took her down it. On the lower deck she was set down, and thrust into a fair-sized cabin.

“Go inside,” he commanded. “You should be comfortable enough, I trust. Stay there till I come; I shall not be long.”

When he had gone Miss Challoner made her precarious way to the bunk against the bulkhead and sank down upon it. Now was undoubtedly the time to possess herself of the pistol, but curiously enough she made no attempt to do this. The cloak slipped from her fingers unheeded she put her hand to her head.

Outside men were shouting and stamping about the deck. The yacht heaved more than ever, and Miss Challoner was almost flung from the bunk. She decided to lie down; she had, at the moment, no interest in what was going forward on deck.

A little while later the Marquis entered the cabin, without ceremony. “Well, my dear, we’ve weighed anchor,” he said with that detestable smile of his.

Miss Challoner opened her eyes, marvelled to see his lordship so untroubled, and shut them again with a shudder.

“And now,” said Vidal silkily, “and now, Miss Mary Challoner ...”

Miss Challoner made a heroic effort, and raised herself on her elbow. “Sir,” she said, self-possessed to the last, “I do not care whether you go or stay, but I desire to warn you that I am about to be extremely unwell.” She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, and said through it in muffled accents: “Immediately!”

His laugh sounded heartless, she thought. “Egad, I never thought of that,” he said. “Take this, my girl.”

She opened her eyes once more, and found that his lord-ship was holding a basin towards her. She found notong at all incongruous in the sight. “Thank youl” gasped Miss Challoner, with real gratitude.

Chapter VII

miss challoner awoke with a long sigh, and lay for a moment with her eyes still closed. To open them would be to court disaster, and she had borne enough, she decided. Then she began to realize that the yacht was no longer pitching and tossing, but was, in fact, almost motionless. She opened her eyes and looked distrustfully at the furnishings of her cabin, but these no longer rose and fell before her indignant gaze.

“Thank God!” said Miss Challoner devoutly. She felt extremely weak, and her head when she raised it from the pillow swam unpleasantly. She lay still, therefore, trying to recollect the happenings of the past interminable hours. She found that her memory was somewhat blurred, but she remembered that Lord Vidal, having presented her with a basin, had retired. He had certainly come back later—hours later, when she was too exhausted even to speak, and he had forced something exceedingly fiery down her throat. With a vague fear of his threat to make her drunk she had tried to struggle, whereupon he had said, still apparently amused: “It’s only brandy, my dear. Drink it.”

So she had drunk it, and it had sent her to sleep. She supposed his lordship must have tucked her up; she had not suspected him of so much consideration.

In the middle of these reflections the door opened, and the Marquis himself came in. He was bright-eyed and a little dishevelled. “You’re awake, are you?” he said. “Up you get, then.”

“I don’t think I can,” said Miss Challoner candidly. “My head swims.”

“You must. We’re at Dieppe. What you want is food,” his lordship informed her callously.

Miss Challoner was impelled to sit up. “You can force your presence on me, I suppose,” she said bitterly, “but if you have any feeling at all you will not talk to me of food.”

“I haven’t,” said Vidal. “You don’t know it but you will be perfectly well when you have dined. Get up and come ashore.”

That last magic word brought Miss Challoner to her feet. His lordship offered his arm. “That’s better,” he encouraged her. “I’ve bespoken dinner and beds at the Coq d’Or.”

They came up on to the deck. Miss Challoner, having requested my lord to precede her, climbed up the companion as quickly as a swimming head would allow. Once on deck she observed that the sea was miraculously calm and blue, and bunked at it in surprise. Then she saw the long shadows on the quay, and asked what time it was.

“Close on six,” replied Vidal. “We met rough weather.”

Her brain refused to work. She kept on repeating to herself: “I’m in France. I can’t get home now. It’s of no avail to ask the time. I’m in France.”

The Marquis led her up the gangway and along the quayside until the Coq d’Or was reached. “Your gear has been taken up,” he said.

She looked at him, puzzled. “But I have none,” she said.

“You are forgetting,” he replied ironically, “I told Sophia to bring nothing, but promised I would provide her with what she might need.”

“Have you bought—dresses for Sophia?” she demanded incredulously.

He grinned. “Oh, not only dresses,” he replied. “You can teach me nothing of what a lady requires. Shifts, négligées, lappets, beads, perfume from Warren’s, Poudre a la Maréchale—you’ll find ’em all there. I have endless experience, I can assure you.”

“That I do not doubt,” she said.

He bowed. “I trust you will approve my taste,” he said, and handed her over to the waiting abigail.

Miss Challoner saw nothing for it but to go upstairs in the wake of this damsel. She had a very fair notion of what her appearance must be, and she felt quite unequal to the coming scene with the Marquis until she had tidied her person.

She spoke French prettily enough, and had no difficulty in making the maid-servant understand her wants. She washed her face and hands, did up her hair again, using the brush and comb of his lordship’s providing, and very gingerly withdrew the pistol from the pocket of her cloak. She thought she would be able to hold it so that the panniers of her gown concealed it from view, and practised this in front of the mirror. Deciding that it was hardly successful, she held the pistol in her right hand and draped her cloak over her arm, so that its folds fell over the weapon. Satisfied, she left her chamber and went downstairs to the private parlour his lordship had engaged.

He was standing by the fire with a glass in his hand. Suddenly she knew why his eyes glittered so strangely; his lordship had been drinking, and was drinking still.

She took one quick look at Mm, and went to the table, and seated herself, holding the pistol under her skirts, and putting her cloak over the back of her chair.

“I find that you were right, sir,” she remarked politely. “I shall be the better for some food.”

He strolled over to his chair and sat down. “You look as though you need something to warm you,” he said. “Will you drink burgundy with me, or ratafia by yourself?”

“Thank you, my lord, I will drink water,” answered Miss Challoner firmly.

“As you please,” he shrugged and leaned back in his chair, lazily watching her.

The entrance of a liveried man, followed by one of the inn-servants created a welcome diversion. The discreet-looking man began to serve them, and surprised Miss Challoner by addressing her in her own tongue.

“I always travel with my own servants,” explained the Marquis, observing her surprise.

“An agreeable luxury, sir,” commented Miss Challoner.

She made an excellent dinner, and maintained a flow of easy conversation for the benefit of his lordship’s servant The Marquis emptied his bottle of burgundy, and sent for a second. Miss Challoner’s heart sank, but the wine only seemed to make his lordship readier of tongue. There was a certain air of recklessness about him, but he was far from being drunk. Miss Challoner, dreading the inevitable tête-à-tête, lingered over the sweetmeats. When she at last ended her repast, the Marquis signed to his servant, who, in his turn, directed the French hireling to clear away the covers. Vidal got up and lounged over to the fire again. Miss Challoner stayed where she was, only pushing her chair back a little way from the table.

“Will your lordship require anything further tonight?” asked the servant.

“Nothing,” Vidal answered.

The man bowed, and withdrew. Vidal spoke softly: “Come here.”

“I have something to say to you first, my lord,” returned Miss Challoner calmly.

“Good God, girl, do you suppose it was to hear you talk that I brought you to France?” Vidal said derisively. “I’ll swear you know better than that!”

“Perhaps,” admitted Miss Challoner. “Nevertheless, sir, I beg you will listen to me. You won’t pretend, I hope, that you are fallen in love with me.”

“Love?” he said scornfully. “No, madam. I feel no more love for you than I felt for your pretty sister. But you’ve thrown yourself at my head, and by God I’ll take you!” His eyes ran over her. “You’ve a mighty trim figure, my dear, and from what I can discover, more brain than Sophia. You lack her beauty, but I’m not repining.”

She looked gravely up at him. “My lord, if you take me, it will be for revenge, I think. Have I deserved so bitter a punishment?”

“You’re not very complimentary, are you?” he mocked. She rose, holding her pistol behind her. “Let me go now,” she said. “You do not want me, and indeed I think you have punished me enough.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he said. “Are you piqued that I liked Sophia better? Never heed it, my dear; I’ve forgotten the wench already.”

“My lord,” she said desperately, “indeed I am not what you think me!”

He burst into one of his wild laughs, and she realized that in this mood she could make no impression on him.

He was advancing towards her. She brought her right hand from behind her, and levelled the pistol. “Stand where you are!” she said. “If you come one step nearer I shall shoot you down.”

He stopped short. “Where did you get that thing?” he demanded.

“Out of your coach,” she answered.

“Is it loaded?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Challoner, incurably truthful.

He began to laugh again, and walked forward. “Shoot then,” he invited, “and we shall know. For I am coming several steps nearer, my lady.”

Miss Challoner saw that he meant it, shut her eyes and resolutely pulled the trigger. There was a deafening report and the Marquis went staggering back. He recovered in a moment. “It was loaded,” he said coolly.

Miss Challoner’s eyes flew open. She saw that Vidal was feeling his left arm above the elbow, and to her dismay she watched a red stain grow upon his sleeve. She dropped the pistol, and her hand went up to her cheek. “Oh, what have I done?” she cried. “Have I hurt you very badly?”

He was laughing again, but quite differently now, as though he were really amused. “You’ve hurt old Plançon’s wall more than you’ve hurt me,” he answered.

M. Plançon himself burst into the room at this moment, his eyes fairly starting from his head. A flood of questions broke from him, accompanied by much excited gesticulation. My lord disposed of nun summarily enough. “Calm yourself, my friend. Madame merely wished to assure herself that my pistol was in order.”

“But milor’, in my hdtel! My beautiful salle he is spoiled! Ah, mon Dieu, but regard me that hole in the wall!”

“Put it down on the shot, you old villain, and remove your fat carcase from my sight,” said his lordship. He saw his steward behind the agitated landlord. “Fletcher, take the fool away.”

“Certainly, my lord,” said Fletcher impassively, and drew M. Plangon out of the room.

Miss Challoner said guiltily: “Oh dear, I am sorry! I did not know it would make such a stir.”

Vidal’s eyes began to twinkle. “You’ve spoiled his beautiful salle, and you’ve spoiled my no less beautiful coat.”

“I know,” said Miss Challoner, hanging her head. “But, after all, it was your fault,” she said with spirit. “You told me to do it.”

“I may have told you to do it, but I can’t say I thought that you Would,” replied his lordship.

“You shouldn’t have come any nearer,” she said severely.

“Obviously,” he agreed. He began to strip off his coat.

“I make you my compliments. I know of only one other woman who would have had the courage to pull that trigger.”

“Who is she?” inquired Miss Challoner.

“My mother. Come and bind up your handiwork. I’m spoiling old Plançon’s carpet.”

Miss Challoner came promptly and took the handkerchief he held out to her. “Are you sure it is not serious?” she asked anxiously. “It bleeds dreadfully.”

“Quite sure. I observe that the sight of blood don’t turn you queasy.”

“I am not such a fool, sir.” Miss Challoner began to roll up his sleeve. “I fear the lace is ruined, my lord. Am I hurting you?”

“Not at all,” said Vidal politely.

Miss Challoner made a pad of her own handkerchief, and bound the wound up tightly with my lord’s.

“Thank you,” he said when this operation was over. “Now if you will help me to put on my coat again, we will talk.”

“Do you think you had better put it on?” asked Miss Challoner doubtfully. “Perhaps it may start to bleed again.”

“My good girl, it’s the veriest scratch!” said Vidal.

“I was afraid I had killed you,” confided Miss Challoner.

He grinned. “You’re not a good enough shot, my dear.” He struggled into his coat, and then pulled a chair to the fire. “Sit down,” he said. She hesitated and he drew one of his own pistols from his pocket and gave it to her. “Shoot me with that next time,” he recommended. “You’ll find it easier.”

She sat down, but though she smiled, her voice was serious when she answered. “If I shoot again, it had better be myself,” she said.

He leaned forward and took the pistol away from her. “In that case, I’ll keep it.” He looked at her frowningly. “You had better explain,” he said abruptly. “I’ve a notion I was right in my first reading of your character.”

“What was that, sir?”

“I thought you were devilish strait-laced.” She nodded. “Yes, my lord,” she said simply.

“Then in God’s name, girl, what possessed you to play this hoyden’s trick on me?”

She clasped her hands in her lap. “If I tell you, my lord, I fear it will make you very angry.”

“You can’t make me more angry than you’ve done already,” he said. “I want the truth now. Let me have it, if you please!”

She was silent for a moment, looking into the fire. He sat still, watching her, and presently she said in her quiet way: “Sophia thought that she could make you wed her. She is very young and silly. My mother too—” she coloured painfully—“is not very wise. I did not think that you would marry Sophia. I thought that you would try to make her your mistress, and I was afraid for her because—because she behaved—foolishly, and because I knew that you would ruin her.” She paused, but he said nothing. “That letter you sent,” she went on, “was directed to Miss Challoner. I am the elder, you see, and it came to my hand. I knew it was writ by you, but I opened it. Sophia never saw it, my lord.”

“Then all you told me at Newhaven was a lie?”

Miss Challoner flushed. “Yes, sir, it was a lie. I wanted to be sure that you would never want to see Sophia again and it seemed to me that if only I could make you believe that she had tricked you—like that—you would be done with her for ever.”

“You were right,” said Vidal grimly.

“Yes. Only I did not know that you would force me to go instead. I didn’t know I should be obliged to tell you all this. I thought you would let me go at once, and I could travel back to London, and only my mother and Sophia be the wiser. Of course, I see now that I was very foolish. But that is the whole truth, my lord.”