“Oh, Simon, surely she could not be so idiotish?” Henrietta said.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “Of course, I wasn’t talking to her above twenty minutes, but she didn’t seem to me a needle-witted girl by any means.”

“No,” she sighed. “She is a dear little creature, but sadly gooseish.”

“Good thing if you were rid of her,” he said. “Good thing for Des too! If it weren’t for this curst father of hers, I’d say let her go! But we shall find ourselves in the briars if he sails in expecting to clasp her to his fat bosom—yes, that’s the way he talks! At least, he didn’t say ‘fat’: that’s a what-do-you-call-it by me!—and you are obliged to tell him she’s run away, and can’t be found!”

“I shall certainly be in the briars, but why you should be I can’t conceive!” she replied, with some asperity. “And it would not be a good thing if she ran away from us under any circumstances whatever! Des entrusted her to my care, and if you think it would be a good thing if I betrayed his confidence so dismally you must be all about in your head!”

“No, no!” he said hastily. “What I meant to say was, not quite such a bad thing! The fact of the matter is, Hetta, that this ramshackle fellow is a pretty ugly customer, and it’s as plain as a pack-saddle that what he means to do is to force Des to marry the girl—or, if that fails, to bleed him for the damage done to her reputation!”

“Des didn’t damage her reputation!” she cried.

“No, I know he didn’t, and so I told the old shagbag! But the thing is I can’t prove he didn’t, because all I know is what Des told me. And that ain’t evidence, as Mr Lickpenny Steane took care to inform me! Confound Des, going off the lord only knows where, and leaving me to cope with this case of pickles! Ten to one I shall make a rare mess of it! The devil of it is, Hetta, that no one knows where he is, so I can’t—”

“He is in Bath,” she interrupted. “He came here on his way back from Harrowgate, and had formed the intention of visiting the lady who owns a school in Bath, where Cherry was educated, you know, to beg her help in finding a genteel situation for Cherry—Nettlecombe not having come up to scratch.”

“In Bath? But that’s where Steane went to! And then came up to London—no, I rather think he said he went first to the Bugles’ place! He must have missed running into Des, for he certainly hadn’t seen him when he came to call on me. In fact, he came to discover from me where Des was. Yes, and that puts me in mind of something that went clean out of my head in the hurry I was in! Dashed if I didn’t forget to ask Aldham what the dickens he meant by sending Steane round to me! Because it must have been Aldham, when Steane was badgering him to say where Des was! Fobbing the fellow off on to me! Jupiter, if I don’t give him a tongue-banger when I get back to London!” He paused, and then said, in a milder tone: “Oh, well! I daresay it was all for the best! At least I was able to head him! Now, you listen to me, Hetta! I wouldn’t have sent him here if I could have avoided it!”

“But, Simon, surely you must have done so?” she protested. “He may be a disreputable person, but he is Cherry’s father, and none of us has any right to hide her from him!”

“Well, I wouldn’t do it,” he said frankly. “But, then, she don’t hit my fancy. But I’ve a strong notion Des will do everything in his power to keep her out of Steane’s hands—once he’s taken the fellow’s measure, which he will do, in a pig’s whisper! Trouble with Des is that he’s too chivalrous by half! Not but what I daresay if I’d been such a sapskull as to have picked the girl up and promised to take care of her I might feel a trifle queasy at handing her over to Steane.”

“You know, Simon,” she said, “for some reason or other, the suspicion that you don’t like Mr Steane has taken strong possession of my mind! But apart from his ambitious scheme to win a rich and titled husband for her—which, I own, gives one no very good idea of his character, but which might, after all, spring from a wish to do his utmost to ensure for her the sort of life any father must wish for his daughter, and which, from anything I have heard of him, he is not himself in the position to provide for her—apart from this, is there any reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to take her into his own care? I can’t but feel that in coming to find her he does show that he holds her in considerable affection.” She stopped, wrinkling her brow. “Though it does seem odd of him to have left her for such a long time without a word, or a sign. However, there may be some reason for that!”

“He was probably in gaol,” said Simon. “For anything I know, he may practise all kinds of roguery, but I fancy his chief business is fuzzing, cogging, and sleeving. And I should think,” he added, “that he’d be pretty good at drinking young ‘uns into a proper state for plucking! A Captain Sharp, Hetta!” he said, seeing that she was looking bewildered. “Sort of fellow who carries a bale of flat-size aces in his pocket, and knows how to fuzz the cards!”

“Good God! Do you mean he is a cheating gamester?” she gasped. “You cannot possibly know that, Simon!”

“Oh, can’t I just?” he retorted. “You must think I’m a slow-top! What else could I think of a fellow that carries half-a-dozen visiting-cards in his pocket-book, all of ‘em with different names, and says that places like Bath and Harrowgate offer no scope for a man of his genius? Of course they don’t! There’s no deep play in the watering-places where people go for their health! And if you think Des will be ready to give her up to a rascal that will drag her all over Europe with him, rubbing shoulders with all the rags and tags of society, you can’t know Des as well as I thought you did!”

“No, no, indeed he wouldn’t be!” she said, very much shocked. “But, surely, if that is the kind of life Mr Steane leads, he cannot wish to be saddled with Cherry? Why should he?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t mean to waste my time trying to hit upon the reason. What I want you to understand, Hetta, is that he means mischief, and dangerous mischief, what’s more! When I saw what his game was, and realized what a deuced unpleasant scandal he could start, if he accused Des of seducing that tiresome girl, promising to marry her, and then tipping her the double, I told him that so far from doing any of those things Des had placed her in the care of some old friends of ours, and had himself posted off to find her grandfather. He pretended that he didn’t believe it. He even had the curst insolence to say—Well, never mind that! So I was forced to tell him that the girl was residing with Lady Silverdale, who was a widow, moving in the first circles, and as starched-up as my father! I meant it for the best, Hetta, but it gave him the chance to land me a heavy facer. He asked me how it came about that such a lady had consented to receive into her house a girl brought to her by a man of Desford’s reputation—oh, yes! I was forgetting that piece of lying insolence! Des, you’ll be interested learn, is a rake and a libertine!—without her maid, or any other attendant!” He broke off suddenly, and jerked up his head, listening to the sound of an approaching carriage. “Oh, my God, here he is!” he said. Two strides took him to the window, and while Henrietta waited in some anxiety, he stood watching the chaise-and-pair until it drew up below the terrace. He then uttered a groan, and said: “Ay, it’s Steane all right and tight!”

“I was never nearer in my life to playing least-in-sight!” confessed Henrietta. “What am I to say to him, Simon? I promise you I am in a perfect quake!”

“No need for you to be in a quake!” answered Simon, in a heartening tone. “But there’s just one thing I must mention!”

“Yes, there is need! I’ve lost Cherry! And if she isn’t found—Oh, I do wish Desford were here!”

“For the lord’s sake, Hetta, don’t you get in a stew!” begged Simon, alarmed. “And as for Des—You know, I’ve been thinking about him, and it’s my belief he will be here! If he went to Bath, we know he reached the place behind Steane, don’t we?”

“Do we?” she said distractedly.

“Of course we do! Steane didn’t meet him there, and the schooldame, whatever her name may be, didn’t tell him she had seen him. All she told him was that Lady Bugle had fetched Cherry away, and had taken her to live with her. I wish you will take a damper, Hetta! If you mean to fly into the twitters we shall be bowled out!”

This severity had its effect. She said: “No, no, I promise you I won’t! But I find my mind is less strong than I believed it to be—in fact, it is all chaos! Oh, heavens, that is Grimshaw’s step! In another moment Mr Steane will be upon us!”

“No, he won’t. Grimshaw will show him into the library, and it won’t hurt him to kick his heels there for a while. Never mind him, just mind me! If Des visited Miss Thingummy after she’d seen Steane, what would he do? Drive back to London as fast as he could, of course!”

“Unless he followed Steane to Maplewood,” she said doubtfully.

“No,” said Simon, shaking his head. “I own I did think of that myself, but the more I consider the matter the more I feel he wouldn’t have done any such thing. Well, do but put yourself in his shoes, Hetta! He knew that Cherry wasn’t living with her aunt, and he must have known that the Bugles wouldn’t have encouraged that old court-card to linger in their house! I daresay he didn’t know that Lady Bugle had told Steane that he had ‘ravished’ her away, but he must have thought the chances were that Steane would have left that place before he could reach it.”

She had been regarding him intently, trying to get her thoughts into order, but at this she said quickly: “He did know that! Lady Emborough wrote to your mama, telling her that she had received a visit from Lady Bugle, demanding to know what Des had done with her niece, and I informed Des of it!”