Mr. Hethersett blushed. “Misapprehension! Told you so at the time!”

“Well, it was my fault!” said Dysart furiously. “I daresay if I hadn’t borrowed three centuries from her you wouldn’t have had to snatch her off Jew King’s doorstep, but how was I to know it would put her in the basket? Besides, I’ve paid it back to her!”

“Nell, my poor child, how could you think—Did I frighten you as much as that?” Cardross said remorsefully.

“No, no, it was all my folly!” she said quickly. “I thought that shocking bill from Lavalle had been with those others, only it wasn’t, and when she sent it me again it seemed as though I couldn’t tell you! Oh, Dysart, pray don’t say any more!”

“Yes, that’s all very well, but I am going to say something more! I’ve a pretty fair notion of what your opinion of me is, Cardross, but I’ll have you know that it was not I who prigged that damned necklace of yours!”

“Eh?” ejaculated Mr. Hethersett, startled.

“You have really no need to tell me that, Dysart,” Cardross replied, his colour heightened, and his eyes fixed on Nell’s face.

“Well, it’s what my own sister thought!” said Dysart.

“Good God, Giles, you’ve never lost the necklace?” Mr. Hethersett demanded.

“No,” answered Cardross, holding Nell’s hand rather tightly. “It isn’t lost. If it were, I should not imagine for one instant that you had taken it, Dysart.”

“Much obliged to you!”

“I must say, that’s the outside of enough,” observed Mr. Hethersett. “Whatever made you take a notion like that into your head, cousin?”

“It was very, very foolish of me!”

“Well, I call it a dashed insult!” declared the Viscount.

“Yes, Dysart: so do I!” said Cardross, raising Nell’s hand to his lips. “I hope you have begged his forgiveness, Nell—as I beg for yours!”

“Oh, Giles, pray hush!”

The Viscount, having frowned over this for a moment, exclaimed: “What, did you think she had sold the thing? If that don’t give you your own again, Nell!”

“That’s all very well,” objected Mr. Hethersett, “but you said it wasn’t lost, Cardross!”

“It was lost, but it has been restored to me. I suppose I now know who stole it—and should have known at the outset! Not your sister, Dysart, but mine! Was that it, Nell?”

“Well, yes, it was,” she confessed. “But you mustn’t be out of reason cross with her, because indeed I believe she would never have thought of doing such a thing, only that Dysart put it into her head!”

“What?” exclaimed Dysart. “No, by God, that’s too much! I never did so!”

“Yes, Dy, you did! Oh, I don’t mean to say that it was what you intended, but I have been thinking about it, and I am persuaded it was your holding me up that night, with Mr. Fancot—good gracious, where is Mr. Fancot?”

“Yes, by Jove! Where is he?” exclaimed Dysart.

“No need to worry about him,” said Mr. Hethersett, nodding to where Mr. Fancot was peacefully sleeping in a large wing-chair. “Wouldn’t have let you all talk in that dashed improper way if he’d been listening to you!”

“If ever I knew anyone like Corny for dropping asleep the instant he gets a trifle above oar!” remarked the Viscount, eyeing his friend with tolerant affection.

“Don’t wake him, I beg of you!” said Cardross. “What, my darling, had that hold-up to do with this affair?”

“Yes, what?” demanded Dysart.

“Well, you see, Giles, when I wouldn’t sell any of the jewels you gave me—and I still think it would have been the most odiously deceiving thing to have done, Dy, however tiresome you may have thought it of me!—Dysart hit upon the notion of pretending to be a highwayman, and taking them from me in that way. Only I recognized him, so it came to nothing. But the thing was that Letty thought it had been a famous notion, and I am very sure that that was what put it into her head to sell the Cardross necklace!” She broke off, as a thought occurred to her. “Good heavens, Letty! What are we about, wasting time in this way? Cardross, we discovered, Felix and I, that they set out with only a pair of horses! It is true that they have several hours start of you, but Felix seems to think that you might easily overtake them before they can reach the Border!”

“I daresay I might—if I were to make the attempt,” he agreed.

“But won’t you?” she asked anxiously.

“No. I have had my fill of driving this evening! Allandale is welcome to her!”

“Yes, but to be married in such a way! Giles, only think what the consequences must be! I shouldn’t wonder at it if it ruined him as well as her! Indeed, I was never more astonished in my life than when I learned he had yielded to her persuasions! I had not thought it of him! And for you, too, how disagreeable must it be! Oh, do, pray, go after them, and bring her back!”

“Dashed if I would!” remarked the Viscount.

“Giles!”

He laid his hand over the small one insistently tugging at the lapel of his coat. “Hush, my love! This is where we must be guided by the judgment of that arbiter of all matters of taste and ton. Well, Felix?”

Mr. Hethersett, impervious to the quizzical look in his cousin’s eye, took snuff in a meditative way, his brow creased. “Don’t fancy it will make much difference,” he pronounced at last, restoring the box to his pocket, and flicking a few grains of King’s Martinique from his sleeve. “Bound to be a deal of gossip whatever you do. Can’t suppose it won’t leak out, if you go careering off after Letty. Devilish nasty scene, too, if you force her to come home. Seems to have gone into strong hysterics when Allandale tried to get her to do that. Not the sort of thing I should care for.”

“No, my God!” said Cardross, with feeling.

“Better make the best of it,” decided Mr. Hethersett. “Think I’ll be going now. Daresay you’ll like to be left alone.”

Nell held out her hand to him. “I have quite ruined your evening!” she said contritely. “Indeed, I am sorry, and so very much obliged to you!”

“No, no, happy to have been of service!” he replied, bowing with exquisite grace over her hand. “Besides, no such thing! Only on my way to White’s, before taking a look-in at the Seftons’ ball. Night’s young yet!”

“Yes, by Jove, so it is!” said the Viscount. “Here, Corny, wake up!”

Mr. Fancot, urgently shaken, opened his eyes, smiled upon the company, and began to hum softly and unmelodiously to himself.

“Now, for the lord’s sake, Corny, you ain’t as dead-beat as that!” said the Viscount. “Don’t start singing again, because you know dashed well you can’t do it!”

“It’s my birthday,” stated Mr. Fancot.

“Well, that’s got nothing to say to anything! Come along! Time we were going!”

“I can sing on my birthday,” said Mr. Fancot. “I can sing Sing old rose, and burn the bellows, and I can sing your song, and I can—”

“Chip-chow, cherry-chow?” interrupted Mr. Hethersett.

“That’s the one!” nodded Mr. Fancot, pleased. “You know it too?”

“I’ve heard it,” replied Mr. Hethersett, rather grimly. He met the Viscount’s challenging gaze, and held it. “You’ve called me a few names this night, Dysart! Now I’ll take leave to tell you that you’re the biggest cod’s head I ever knew!”

“What the devil do you mean by that?” the Viscount shot at him, flushing.

“You know dashed well what I mean! You learned that song from Cripplegate!”

“What if I did?” demanded Dysart.

“I’ll tell you that, Dysart,” interposed Cardross. He nodded dismissal to his cousin, and looked Dysart over. “Beggar’s Club, eh? Well, I thought as much! A Hussar regiment should suit you: it would be a pity to waste your horsemanship. Well?”

“Oh, to hell with you! I’ve told you I can’t!” Dysart said.

“You’ll find you can, I promise you.”

“By Jove, what wouldn’t I give to be out there!” Dysart said impulsively.

“You going to join, Dy?” enquired Mr. Fancot, who had been following this conversation with great interest. “That’s a devilish good notion! Let’s go and join at once!”

“Well, we can’t,” said Dysart shortly. “Besides, you don’t want to join!”

“Yes, I do,” asserted Mr. Fancot. “Can’t think why I didn’t hit on the notion before! There’s nothing left to do here, except walk backwards to Brighton, and I don’t fancy that above half.”

“Who shall blame you?” agreed Cardross, shepherding him kindly but firmly into the hall.

“That’s just it,” explained Mr. Fancot. “I may have to. Never refused a challenge in my life, and I’ve a notion Willy means to try me with that one. You know Willy?”

“No, but I should lose no time in leaving the country.”

“You’re a sensible man,” said Mr. Fancot warmly. “Very happy to have met you!”

“The pleasure has been all mine,” said Cardross, putting his hat into his hand, and opening the front door.

“Not at all, not at all!” responded Mr. Fancot, ambling down the steps.

“Lord, if ever I saw him in such prime and plummy order before!” said the Viscount. “Now I shall have him going all over town, trying to find the Horse Guards!” He picked up his own hat, and hesitated, looking at Cardross.

Cardross smiled. “You’re a damned fool, Dysart, and a damned nuisance besides—but too good a man to be wasting your talents cutting up cork-brained larks! Don’t tease yourself about your mother! I’ll make all right in that quarter.”

He held out his hand, and the Viscount took it, grinning ruefully. “I wish you might!”

“I will.”