Startled, and considerably dismayed, Eliza said: “Good gracious! I must certainly meet this paragon!”

“You may do so tomorrow, if you choose. She will be at the assembly the Seftons are holding, I imagine. You had better accompany me to it — if only to spare me the gush of reproaches Maria Sefton would swamp me with for not having brought you. I shall be astonished if Charis doesn’t take your breath away.”

Unlike her sisters, Eliza had never tried to provide her only brother with an eligible wife. Relations between them had always been amicable, even mildly affectionate, but no strong ties bound any member of the Dauntry family to another. Happily married to her John Kentmere, absorbed in her progeny, and rarely visiting London, she had little interest in Alverstoke’s future, and had once infuriated Louisa by saying that his marriage was no concern of hers. But installed once more in Alverstoke House, picking up the threads of her old life, she did feel some concern, for it seemed to her that he was on the verge of contracting an alliance which could only end in disaster. However beautiful she might be, this school-room-miss of his would become a dead bore to him within a year of their marriage — probably even sooner! She had set no great store by Lady Jersey’s disclosures, and even less by an impassioned letter from Louisa, recommending her to try what her supposed influence over Alverstoke would do to save him (and the Family) from a shocking mesalliance; but the dithyramb Alverstoke had sung in praise of Charis Merriville had the effect of sending her off next day to visit Augusta. With all her faults, Augusta did not want for sense or judgment.

Lady Jevington received her with temperate pleasure, enquired, with meticulous civility, after the health of her family, and expressed the hope that she would replenish her wardrobe while she was in London. “For I should be failing in my duty as your eldest sister, Eliza, if I did not tell you that that outmoded gown you are wearing gives you a very off appearance,” she said. “No doubt you have come to London for that purpose.”

“Well, I haven’t,” replied Eliza. “I’ve come to discover if it’s true that Vernon had fallen head over ears in love with some highly finished piece of nature not yet out of her teens.”

“Not to my knowledge,” replied Lady Jevington, with majestic cairn. She favoured her sister with a thin smile, in which tolerance and contempt were nicely mixed. “I collect that Louisa has been writing to you. Louisa is a fool.”

“Yes, but Sally is no fool, and she too wrote to me that Vernon stands within an ace of committing what I can’t but feel would be the greatest imprudence of his life!”

“I have never,” stated Lady Jevington, “rated Sarah Fane’s understanding above the average.”

“Augusta, he described the girl to me last night in such terms as I have never heard him use before!”

“He was hoaxing you,” said Lady Jevington.

Eliza frowned in perplexity. “Do yon mean to say that she is not so excessively lovely? But, if that’s so, why should he — ”

“I do not think I have ever seen a more beautiful girl than Charis Merriville — and rarely one who is more prettily behaved,” pronounced her ladyship judicially. “She made an instant hit when she appeared at Ver-non’s ball, which was not wonderful, and now has more than half the eligible bachelors languishing at her feet. Gregory,” she added, with unruffled composure, “is one of them. But nothing will come of that, and I am happy to know that his first fancy should have alighted on a modest girl of excellent principles. I daresay it will do him a great deal of good.”

Eliza said impatiently: “Yes, but Vernon? If he is not in love with the girl, what in the world prevailed upon him to bestir himself, not only on her behalf, but on her brothers’ as well? It is not at all like him!”

“I do not pretend to be in his confidence, but I am tolerably well-acquainted with him, and I believe he presented the Merriville girls merely to spite Louisa, and Lucretia. That Woman,” said Augusta, with awful restraint, “was not behindhand in badgering him to hold a ball at Alverstoke House, to mark Chloë’s come-out, as well as Jane’s. One may guess the means he used to compel Louisa to chaperon the girls! He is at liberty to indulge his freakish whims as he pleases, but I consider that his conduct was most reprehensible. Indeed, I strongly advised him not to yield to Louisa’s and Lucretia’s importunities.”

Restraining the impulse to remind her that Alverstoke had never been known to listen to sisterly advice, Eliza said: “I dare say he might have invited the Merrivilles to his ball to punish Louisa, but that doesn’t account for the rest of it. One of his so-called wards — Felix: the most delightful urchin! — invaded the house yesterday, and it was perfectly plain that he looks upon Vernon as a certain source of indulgences. He doesn’t stand in the least awe of him either, which tells its own tale. Now, why, pray, should Vernon, who is utterly indifferent to our children, interest himself in the Merrivilles, if not because he wishes to make himself acceptable to their sister?”

“That, no doubt, is the reason. But unless I am much mistaken it is the elder and not the younger sister for whom he has conceived a decided tendre.”

Eliza stared at her. “Good God, how is this? He told me she was passably goodlooking, not in her first youth, full of commonsense, and masterful!”

“Very true,” agreed Lady Jevington. “I believe her to be some four-and-twenty years of age, but from the circumstances of her mother’s early demise, which left her the virtual mistress of the household, one would suppose her to be older. I think her a young woman of character, and I have come to the conclusion that she will suit Alverstoke very well.”

“Augusta!” Eliza gasped. “A woman who is no more than passably goodlooking for Alverstoke? You must be all about in your head! When, pray, has he had a tendre for any but regular out-and-outers?”

“And when, my dear Eliza, have any of these out-and-outers, as you call them, failed to bore him within a few months?” retorted Augusta. “Frederica cannot, I own, hold a candle to Charis, in respect of beauty; but she has a great deal of countenance, and a liveliness of mind which Charis lacks. They are both agreeable, well-bred girls, but Charis is a lovely ninnyhammer, while Frederica, in my judgment, is a woman of superior sense.”

A trifle stunned by this measured pronouncement, Eliza said: “Augusta, am I all about in my head? Do you seriously mean to tell me that you think one of Fred Merriville’s daughters an eligible match for Alverstoke?”

“It is not, perhaps, the match I should have chosen for him,” admitted her ladyship. “Upon reflection, however, I believe it will do very well. Unless you are prepared to face with equanimity the prospect of seeing that Block, Endymion, step into Alverstoke’s shoes, you will agree that it is of the highest importance that Alverstoke should marry, and set up his nursery, before he becomes wholly abandoned to the single state. I think I may say that I have spared no pains to introduce to his notice every eligible female of my acquaintance. I shall not attempt to deny that my exertions were useless — as were Louisa’s! But that was to be expected!” she said, momentarily descending from her Olympian heights. “If I were to tell you, Eliza, of Louisa’s folly —!” She checked herself, resuming her dignity, and said: “But that is of no moment. Suffice it to say that neither her nor my efforts were attended by success.” She paused again, but continued after a moment, with austere resolution, and fixing her sister with a quelling eye. “My natural partiality,” she stated, “has never blinded me to the faults in Alverstoke’s character, but much as I deprecate them, I feel bound to say, in common justice, that they are not to be laid wholly at his own door. Setting aside the indulgence that was granted him from the hour of his birth, he has been so much courted, flattered, and positively hunted, that much as one may deplore the cynicism with which he regards females one cannot wonder at it. I assure you, Eliza, I have frequently blushed for my sex! And that, I fancy, is why he seems bent on fixing his interest with Frederica. You may depend upon it that I have closely observed her. But if you were to ask me whether she is aware of his interest in her, or would welcome an offer from him, I should be obliged to reply that I do not know. All I can say is that I have never seen her throw out the smallest lure to him, or betray by the least sign that she cherishes for him any warmer feeling than a cousinly friendship.”

Digesting this, Eliza said slowly: “I see. You think that intrigues him, and you may well be right. But it seems very odd to me that both Louisa and Sally believe him to be in love with the other sister!”

“He is being extremely cautious,” said Augusta.

“It must be for the first time!”

“Exactly so! I am of the opinion that he does not yet know his own mind. But I consider it significant that he is taking pains — also, I daresay, for the first time! — to do nothing that might make Frederica the subject of malicious on-dits. Even Louisa has failed to perceive that there is a very different expression in his eyes when he talks to Frederica than the quizzing look he gives Charis.”

“Well!” said Eliza. “I had no notion of this, or that matters had become so serious! To be sure, it did occur to me, when we sat cosing together last night, and when Felix set out to cajole him, that he was not as — as inhuman as he was used to be! If that is Frederica’s influence at work — Oh, but Augusta, you can’t have considered! Only think of her encumbrances! He told me himself that Felix and his brother are in her charge; can you conceive of his being willing to undertake any part of that responsibility?”