“I don’t think you are acquainted with Mr Nethercott, are you, Des?” said Henrietta. “Mr Nethercott, you must let me make you known to Lord Desford, who is almost my foster-brother!”

The two men shook hands, each swiftly weighing the other up. Cary Nethercott was rather older than Desford, but lacked the Viscount’s air of easy assurance. His manners, though perfectly well-bred, held a good deal of shy reserve. He was taller and more thick-set than Desford; and while he was dressed with propriety there was no suggestion about him of the man of fashion: his coat was made of Bath cloth, but only a clodpole could have supposed it to have come from the hands of Weston, or Nugee. He had a well-formed person, regular features, and if his habitual expression was grave it was also kindly, and his rare smile held a good deal of sweetness.

“No, I fancy we’ve never met,” said Desford. “You have only lately come into the district, haven’t you? My mother was speaking of you yesterday: said you were old Mr Bourne’s heir.”

“Yes, I am,” replied Cary. “It seems very strange that I should be, because I scarcely knew him!”

“All the better for you!” said Desford. “The most crotchety old rumstick I ever met in my life! Lord, Hetta, will you ever forget the dust he kicked up when he found us trespassing on his land?”

“No, indeed!” she said, laughing. “And we weren’t doing the least harm! I do hope, Mr Nethercott, that you won’t fly into a rage if I should stray on to the sacred ground of Marley House!”

“You may be very sure I won’t!” he said, smiling warmly at her.

At this point, young Mr Beckenham’s evil genius prompted him to embark on a tangled speech. He said throatily: “For my part, I can promise Miss Silverdale that if ever she should stray on to my land I should think it hallowed ground thereafter! At least, what I mean is I should if it were my land, but that’s of no consequence, because it will be, when my father dies—not that I wish him to die!—and, in any event, he would be as happy as I should be to welcome you to Foxshot, if there were the least chance of your straying on to our land! I only wish Foxshot had been situated within walking distance of Inglehurst!”

He then perceived that Cary Nethercott was looking very much amused, and subsided into blushful silence.

“Well said!” approved the Viscount, patting him on the shoulder. “If you’re not very much obliged to him, Hetta, you should be!”

“Of course I am!” said Henrietta, smiling kindly upon her youthful admirer. “And if Foxshot were not fifteen miles distant I expect I should stray on to it!”

“In the meantime,” quietly interposed Cary Nethercott, “I believe it is time we both took our leave, and allowed Miss Silverdale to enjoy a comfortable cose with his lordship.”

Mr Beckenham could not gainsay it; and although Henrietta said merrily that she and his lordship were more likely to come to cuffs than to indulge in a comfortable cose she made no attempt to deter the departure. Mr Beckenham reverently kissed her hand, but his older and less demonstrative rival merely shook it, begging her to convey his compliments to her mama. He then bade the Viscount goodbye, expressing a conventional hope that he might have the pleasure of meeting him again, and took himself off.

“Well,” said the Viscount, critically watching his withdrawal, “he’s better than I looked for! But I don’t think it will do, Hetta: he ain’t the man for you!”

Miss Silverdale had very fine eyes. They were, indeed, her only claim to beauty, for her mouth was held to be too large, her high-bridged nose too aquiline, and her hair of an undistinguished brown; but her eyes dominated her face, and were responsible for the generally accepted dictum that she had a great deal of countenance. Their colour was unremarkable, being of that indeterminate colour which passes for gray, but they were subject to changes seldom to be seen in the more admired blue, or brown eyes. If she was bored, they looked to be almost lightless, but as soon as her interest was roused they darkened, and glowed; they could sparkle in anger; or, more frequently, in amusement; and they were at all times reflective of her moods. As she turned them now upon the Viscount, they held surprise, a hint of anger, and a good deal of laughter. She said: “Do you think so indeed? Well, if you’re right what a fortunate circumstance it is that he hasn’t made me an offer! Who knows but what, at my age, I might have accepted it?”

“Don’t hide your teeth with me, Hetta! It’s as plain as a pikestaff that he will make you an offer! I daresay he’s a very worthy man, and I can see he has good, easy manners, but he wouldn’t do for you! Take my word for it!”

“What a dog in the manger you are, Ashley!” she exclaimed, between indignation and amusement. “You don’t want me yourself, but you can’t endure the thought that I might marry another man!”

“Nothing of the sort!” said the Viscount. “I may not wish to marry you—and don’t try to hoax me into believing that you’ve been wearing the willow for me these nine years, because there’s nothing amiss with my memory, and I remember as clearly as if it was yesterday how you begged me not to offer for you, when that abominable plot was hatched between your father and mine!—but I’m devilish fond of you, and I’d be happy to see you married to a man who was up to your weight. The thing is that Nethercott ain’t! You’d be bored with him before the end of your honeymoon, Hetta!”

“You can’t think how much obliged to you I am, Des, for having my interests so much at heart!” she said, with immense, if spurious, earnestness. “But it is possible, you know—just faintly possible!—that I am a better judge of what will suit me than you are! Since your memory is so good there can be no need to remind you that I am not a silly schoolgirl, but in my twenty-sixth year—”

“No need at all,” he interrupted, with one of his disarming smiles. “You will be twenty-six on the 15th of January next, and I know already what I mean to give you on that occasion. How could you think I would forget your birthday, best of my friends?”

“You are quite atrocious, you know,” she informed him, in a resigned voice. “However I should miss you very much if we ceased to be the best of friends, for there’s no denying that it is a great comfort to be able to turn to you for advice whenever I find myself in a hobble—which, to do you justice, you’ve never failed to give me. So do, pray, let us leave this nonsensical argument about poor Mr Nethercott before we find ourselves at outs! You said it was filial piety which brought you home: I do hope this doesn’t mean that Lord Wroxton is ill?”

“Not unless rage has caused him to fall into an apoplectic fit,” he responded. “We parted on the worst of bad terms last night—in fact, he said he never wanted to see my face again—but Mama and Pedmore have assured me that he didn’t mean it, and I believe them. Provided I don’t make the mistake of intruding my phiz upon him too soon, I daresay he will be quite pleased to see it again. Of course, it was quite cockleheaded of me to have let him see it twice in less than two months!”

She laughed. “From which I collect that he is in the gout again! Poor Lord Wroxton! But what made him rip up at you? Has some tattle-box been carrying tales about you to him?”

“Certainly not!” he replied austerely. “There are no tales to carry!”

“What, have you cast off the dasher I saw you with at Vauxhall a month ago?” enquired Miss Silverdale, artlessly surprised.

“No, she cast me off!” he retorted. “A lovely little barque of frailty, wasn’t she? But much too expensive, unfortunately!”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” she said sympathetically. “And haven’t you found another to take her place? But you will, Des, you will!”

“One of these days you will be found strangled—very likely by me!” the Viscount warned her. “Pray, what business has a delicately nurtured female to know anything about such things?”

“Ah, that’s one of the advantages of having outgrown one’s girlhood!” she said. “One need no longer pretend to be an innocent!”

The Viscount had been lounging beside her on a rustic seat, but this utterance startled him into straightening himself with a jerk, and exclaiming: “For God’s sake, Hetta—! Is that how you talk to people?”

Her eyes twinkled mischievously; she said, on a choke of laughter: “No, no, only to you, Des! That’s another of the ways in which you are a comfort to me! Of course, I do talk pretty freely to Charlie, but he’s only my younger brother, not my elder brother! Does Griselda never talk frankly to you?”

“I can’t remember that she ever did, but I had only just come down from Oxford when she got herself hitched to Broxbourne, and I don’t see much of her nowadays.” He gave a sudden chuckle. “Would you believe it, Hetta? My father suddenly ripped up an old grievance which I had thought dead and buried years ago, and raked me down in thundering style for not having coaxed you to marry me!”

“Oh, good God!” she cried. “Still? Why didn’t you tell him that we didn’t wish to marry one another?”

“I did, but he didn’t believe me. To be sure, I didn’t tell him that we knew all about the plot he and your father had so inexpertly hatched, and had decided what we must do about it. Believe me, my dear, that would never do!”

“No,” she agreed. “And it wouldn’t do for Mama either! I did tell Papa, and he perfectly understood our feelings, and never once reproached me. But Mama never ceases to do so! I do wish you would do something to give her a disgust of you, instead of making yourself agreeable to her! Every time she meets you she complains of my ingratitude until I could scream, and begs me not to blame her when I find myself at my last prayers. According to her, you are everything that is most desirable, and I must be all about in my head! What she might say of you if you were not heir to an Earldom I haven’t asked her!” Her little spurt of temper subsided; she gave a rueful laugh, and said: “Oh, dear, how very improper of me to talk like that about her! Let me assure you that I do not do so to anyone but you! And how shocking it is that I should be glad she is feeling not quite the thing today, and doesn’t mean to leave her room! I do hope Grimshaw can be trusted not to tell her you have been here!”