He laughed, and set the cap down. “Well, what would you have had me do? I could scarcely forbid the banns: Freddy is of age.”

“As though that could signify! Not that I wished you to go to such lengths as that!”

“I wonder if he did?” said his lordship thoughtfully.

Her full blue eyes stared at him. “What can you possibly mean? Freddy wish it?” A dreadful suspicion smote her. “Legerwood! It cannot be that she has entrapped Freddy into this engagement?”

“Oh, no, most unlikely, I imagine!” he responded coolly. “Quite an innocent!—refreshingly so, I thought.”

“Of course she is! Reared in such a way! But one is forced to consider whether she has not induced poor Freddy to offer for her only to escape from Arnside. And I am very, very sorry for her, and I am sure I know nothing against her, except that her mother was a Frenchwoman, which I cannot like, but it is not the match I hoped for! I hope I may not be an odious schemer—and if I were, I should be delighted to know that my dear son was to marry a fortune, which, I assure you, I am not, for of all things I detest anything mercenary, particularly when it is not in the least necessary that he should do so! I should be very glad to think that my uncle meant to leave legacies to the younger boys, but as for Freddy, he is abundantly provided for, and I did hope to see him married to someone of consequence, and not to a little countrified girl nobody ever heard of!”

“Do not despair!” recommended his lordship. “I will own myself astonished if anything comes of this engagement. My dear Emma, you are not such a goose-cap that you can imagine either of them to be in love with the other!”

Lady Legerwood was tieing the strings of her cap, but she let her hands fall, and turned in her chair to confront him. “But if she has not entrapped him, and they are not in love, in heaven’s name why have they become engaged?”

“That I don’t yet know,” he answered. “I am not sufficiently well-acquainted with Kitty even to hazard a guess. I suspect the existence of a plot—”

“Not of Freddy’s making!” interpolated Lady Legerwood, ruffling up in defence of her young.

“I am far too well-acquainted with Freddy to make it necessary for you to tell me that, my love. Certainly not of his making. For some reason, as yet hidden from us, Kitty wishes it to be thought that she is betrothed to Freddy. An interesting feature of the engagement—or so it seems to me—is that for reasons equally mysterious no immediate announcement is to be made.”

“No announcement?” she cried. “But why not?”

“Measles,” he said imperturbably.

“Nonsense!”

“Of course: it was Freddy’s offering on the altar of parental curiosity. Kitty preferred to lay the blame at the door of your deplorable uncle’s eccentricity.”

“That might well be true,” she said, considering deeply. “When my uncle made this disgraceful plan you may depend upon it he meant Jack to benefit! I declare it serves him right to be so set-down! Perhaps he hopes it will all come to nothing. He could not refuse his consent to the engagement, of course, because he will never go back on his word. It is one of the things one so particularly dislikes in him! What should we do?”

“Do? Why, nothing! Except, perhaps, enjoy a diverting episode.”

“For my part, I do not find it diverting!” she said tartly. “I think you should demand to know the whole!”

“Oh, do you? And for my part I think I should be foolish beyond permission to do anything of the kind. Freddy’s efforts to concoct suitable lies for my delectation might, I daresay, be amusing, but I think I won’t put him to so much mental fatigue.”

“Oh, dear, I suppose he would lie to you! How very dreadful it is! And he expects me to dress Kitty, and to take her to parties with me—”

“No, you are mistaken. I collect that he has abandoned that scheme.”

“Is she to return to Arnside?” asked her ladyship hopefully.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so! Freddy is going to hatch another scheme.”

“Legerwood, you know very well he will do no such thing! We shall be obliged to do something!”

“Nonsense, my love! Freddy assures me he is bound to think of something,” said his lordship, at his most urbane.

But no one was more surprised than he when his heir, having sat throughout the second course at dinner wrapped in profound thought, announced suddenly: “Knew I should hit on something! Well, I have!”

Lady Legerwood, whose conversation during dinner had meandered between the sufferings of her younger children, and the predicament in which her married daughter found herself, looked doubtfully at him. “Hit on what, dear Freddy?”

“Meg,” replied Freddy succinctly. “Going to visit her.”

“Are you, my love? But—Oh, now you put me in mind of it I recall that she is going to Almack’s tonight, with Emily Cowper!”

“Find her there,” said Freddy.

“Well, of course, dear—But you are not dressed for Almack’s!”

“Go back to my lodgings and change. Plenty of time!” said Freddy. “Must see Meg!”

“This brotherly devotion is most affecting,” remarked Lord Legerwood. “May we know why it has so suddenly attacked you?”

“It ain’t anything of the sort, sir!” said Freddy, justly indignant. “Told you I’d hit on something! Came to me with the cheesecakes!”

“What a tribute to the cook!” said his father.

He looked at Freddy with an expression of patient resignation; but Miss Charing, who had been vainly trying, ever since the news of the epidemic raging in the house had been broken to her, to think of an alternative to returning to Arnside on the morrow, said anxiously: “Is it about me, Freddy?”

“Of course it is. Famous good notion! Meg don’t want to stay with old Lady Buckhaven, don’t want Cousin Amelia to keep her company, can’t have Fanny, because she’s got the measles—better have you!”

Lord Legerwood, in the act of raising his claret-glass to his lips, lowered it again, and regarded his son almost with awe. “These unsuspected depths, Frederick—! I have wronged you!”

“Oh, I don’t know that, sir!” Freddy said modestly. “I ain’t clever, like Charlie, but I ain’t such a sapskull as you think!”

“I have always known you could not be, my dear boy.”

“Kitty to stay with Meg!” Lady Legerwood said, considering it dubiously. “I must say—But would it answer? I am sure Lady Buckhaven wishes her to have some older female with her, and I own—”

“No need to tell her Kit’s age, ma’am. Never leaves Gloucestershire, so she ain’t likely to find out. Besides, couldn’t kick up a dust! Affianced wife—can’t stay here, because of the measles, stays with m’sister instead. Quite the thing!”

“Oh, Freddy!” exclaimed Miss Charing, eyes and cheeks glowing, “it is a splendid scheme! Only, will your sister like it?”

“Like anything that kept her away from old Lady Buckhaven,” said Freddy. Upon reflection, he added: “Except Cousin Amelia. Well—stands to reason!”

So shortly after ten o’clock, just as Miss Charing was climbing into bed after a quiet evening spent in poring over the fashion-plates in various periodicals, Mr. Standen, beautiful to behold in knee-breeches and striped stockings, a blue coat with very long tails, a white waistcoat, and a neckcloth which caused an acquaintance almost to swoon with envy, sauntered into the vestibule at Almack’s Assembly Rooms. He handed his hat and his coat to an attendant lackey, gave a couple of twitches to his wrist-bands and favoured the great Mr. Willis with a nod.

Mr. Willis, according him the bow due to a Pink of the Ton, would not have dreamed of asking to see his voucher. Quite surprising persons might find themselves excluded from Almack’s, but not the most capricious of its patronesses would have entertained for a moment the thought of excluding Mr. Standen. He was neither witty nor handsome; his disposition was retiring; and although he might be seen at any social gathering, he never (except by the excellence of his tailoring) drew attention to himself. Not for Mr. Standen, the tricks and eccentricities of gentlemen seeking notoriety! He was quite a pretty whip, but no one had ever seen him take a fly off the leader’s ear, or heard of his breaking a record in a racing-curricle; he rode well to hounds, without earning the title of neck-or-nothing; and while he sometimes practised single-stick in Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, or tossed oft a third of daffy in Cribb’s Parlour, he was no Corinthian. Indeed, so far from aspiring to pop in a hit over Jackson’s guard, or to stand up for any number of rounds with some Pet of the Fancy, he would have disliked either experience very much indeed. Nor could anyone have thought him an ideal cavaliere-servente, for he was too inarticulate to pay charming compliments, and had never been known to indulge in the mildest flirtation. But a numerous circle of male acquaintances held him in considerable affection, and with the ladies he was a prime favourite. The most sought-after beauty was pleased to stand up with so graceful a dancer; any lady desirous of redecorating her drawing-room was anxious for his advice; no hostess considered her invitation-list complete without his name. His presence did not, of course, confer on a party the distinction that Mr. Brummell’s did, but he was a much more agreeable guest, never arriving long after he had been despaired of and then departing within twenty minutes, and never startling the old-fashioned by uttering calculated impertinences. He could be depended upon, too. He would not stand against the wall, refusing to dance; and no hostess, presenting him to the plainest damsel in the room, had the smallest fear that he would excuse himself, or abandon his partner at the earliest opportunity. He was an excellent escort for any lady deprived at the last moment of her lord’s attendance, for his appearance could not but add to her consequence, and he was always nice to a fault in every attention to her comfort.