“All!” exclaimed Frederica. “Mr Trevor, I can never, never tell you how grateful I am to you! I don’t mean to embarrass you by throwing myself on your chest, for you have borne enough this day, but I promise you I easily could! Thank you!”

Much discomposed, he stammered: “Not at all! Nothing to thank me for! Only did what I thought right!”

“Don’t be so modest, Charles!” said Alverstoke. “You know very well that you’ve beaten us all hollow. I find it extremely disturbing. I never doubted my own courage till today!”

“Very true! You are quite shone down!” said Eliza. “Only what’s to be done now? I am at one with you, Frederica, in thinking Endymion a very poor match for Charis, but if Lucretia gives her consent —?”

Frederica sighed. “I suppose I must do so too.”

“Certainly you must,” said Alverstoke. “You cannot possibly live with a watering-pot for the rest of the summer! You and Lucretia will bestow your blessings on this very boring Romeo and Juliet; I will endeavour to restrain Romeo from committing any extravagant folly; and a formal announcement of the betrothal shall be sent to the Gazette.”

“Very well,” Frederica said listlessly.

“Yes, but I am strongly of the opinion that the announcement of your own betrothal should come first, Vernon!” said Eliza, quizzing him with her eyes. “In fact, I think your wedding should come first. Charis and Endymion can very well wait for a month or two before they become formally engaged. And then you can give a betrothal-party for them, and they can be married from Alverstoke House. Don’t you agree with me, Charles?”

Mr Trevor, manfully, if fleetingly, meeting the eyes of his seething employer, said: “As a matter of fact, ma’am, I was just thinking so myself.”

“Oh, were you?” said his lordship wrathfully.

“Well, sir — you couldn’t expect me to be blind!” said Charles.

“But what are you dreaming of?” demanded Frederica, suddenly rather pale. “There — there is no question of such a thing!”

“Nonsense, child, of course you are going to marry Alverstoke!” said Eliza briskly, drawing on her gloves. “Why, Augusta told me so the very day after I came up to London! She says you will deal extremely, too. So does Sally Jersey, and — ”

“Will you have the goodness, Eliza, to permit me to make my proposals myself?” interrupted his lordship, in a voice of dangerous calm.

“Yes, my dear brother! But do, pray, stop fearing to put it to the touch, and wondering if this is quite the right moment, or whether you would not do better to wait until Frederica is rather less harassed!” responded Eliza, smiling affably at him. “Charles, are you too worn down to escort me to Somerset House?”

“No, indeed! I should be happy to do so!” he said promptly.

“Then we will go there immediately.” She turned, and embraced Frederica. “Goodbye, my dear! I am leaving London tomorrow, so I’ll wish you happy now. Charles, I depend on you to tell me which of the pictures I must most admire!”

“My sisters —!” said his lordship, with loathing, as he shut the door on Mr Trevor’s heels. Well-aware that it behooved him to tread warily, he added, in a meditative tone: “Not but what she was perfectly right, of course. And damnably acute! I did fear to put it to the touch while Felix occupied your whole mind. And why the devil should we wait on the convenience of those two young idiots?”

Frederica, standing as though rooted to the floor, said, in a voice which, even to her ears, sounded very unlike her own: “This is ridiculous, Cousin Alverstoke. Such an — an absurd notion has never crossed my mind!”

“That, my child, I know only too well!” he replied ruefully.

“I have no thought of marriage!”

“That also I know — to my cost! All you think of is Pork Jelly, my love!”

“Pork Jelly? Oh —!” The irrepressible laughter sprang into her eyes for a moment. “You don’t mean to tell me you were going to make me an offer then?”

“Such was my intention, but there is something very daunting about Pork Jelly.”

“But it was Restorative Pork Jelly!” she said, before she could check her unruly tongue. She saw that he was coming towards her, and stepped back, saying quickly: “I see what it is! You feel it to be your duty to offer for me, because you think you may have — have compromised me, staying at Monk’s Farm as you did, but I assure you — ”

“I did not stay at Monk’s Farm, and when I recall the pains I took not to compromise you, driving to and from the worst inn I ever put up at, and over an abominable surface, I can only marvel at your ingratitude, Frederica!”

“Oh, never that! never that! So good you were! so — so kind! But you don’t want to marry me, Alverstoke! You know you don’t!”

“Of course I don’t!” he responded, with great cordiality. “But since two of my sisters, my secretary — damn his impudence! — and at least two of my oldest friends, are apparently convinced, in spite of all my efforts to throw dust in their eyes, that that is my ambition, I do beg of you, Frederica, to accept my offer! I cannot — I really cannot endure the mortification of being rejected!”

“No, no, pray don’t —!” she said imploringly. “You are aware of what my situation is! I have Jessamy and Felix to think of: I cannot leave them to Harry’s care! Surely you must know this?”

“I haven’t asked you to leave them to his care. I daresay they will like to spend a part of their holidays with him, but they will naturally make their home with us. Like my estimable nephew, I do feel, my love, that they stand in crying need of a little masculine guidance! I realize, of course, that, as a moral preceptor, I fall a long way short of Buxted. On the other hand, they like me better.”

“But I have not the smallest intention of marrying Lord Buxted!”

“I think that very wise,” he said. “For some reason or another, Jessamy and Felix seem to have taken him in aversion, don’t they? Moreover, I very much doubt whether he would be prepared to extend a welcome to the Baluchistan hound. No, I shouldn’t marry Buxted, if I were you. Or even Darcy, who informed me last night that he did his best to cut me out. He wouldn’t be able to cope with the boys at all.”

Torn between amusement and unusual perturbation, she said: “You speak as though you thought I would marry for their sakes! I never should!”

“Oh, I know that! But I also know that you would never marry anyone whom they disliked, or who wasn’t willing to include them in his household. I was only trying to make myself more acceptable to you! I am willing, you see: I like them, and they interest me. Furthermore, I have become so much accustomed to figuring as their guardian that I should strongly resist any attempt to remove them from the sphere of my influence.”

She said unsteadily: “You are all goodness — all kindness! I don’t know — I am not sure — why you have made me this offer: whether because you do think you compromised me, or, perhaps — out of compassion, which is quite misplaced, but which I fancy you have sometimes felt, but — ”

“Really, Frederica, you should know better than to talk such twaddle!” he expostulated. “Of all the moonshine —! I am neither good nor kind; I did not compromise you; and if I thought you an object for compassion I should also think you a dead bore, my girl! But you have never bored me.” He possessed himself of her hands, and held them firmly. “The only woman I have ever known who has never done so, and could never do so! I had not thought that such a woman existed, Frederica.”

She was trembling, her brain in a whirl. “Oh, impossible! You are not — in love with me! How could you be? Are you trying to — to hoax me into believing that? No, no, don’t!”

“Oh, not in the least!” he assured her cheerfully. “It is merely that I find I cannot live without you, my adorable Frederica!”

Unconsciously, she returned the clasp of his hands. Looking up into his laughing eyes, wonder and doubt in her own, she said shyly: “Is it like that?Being in love? You see, I never was in love, so I don’t know. And I made my mind up years and years ago that I wouldn’t marry anyone unless I was truly in love with him. Alverstoke, I don’t think I can be, because I don’t feel at all like Charis, and she does know! It has always seemed to me that if one falls in love with any gentleman one becomes instantly blind to his faults. But I am not blind to your faults, and I do not think that everything you do or say is right! Only — is it being — not very comfortable — and cross — and not quite happy,when you aren’t there?”

“That, my darling,” said his lordship, taking her ruthlessly into his arms, “is exactly what it is!”

“Oh —!” Frederica gasped, as she emerged from an embrace which threatened to suffocate her. “Now I know! I am in love!”

The youngest Merriville, bursting into the room some time later, found them seated side by side on the sofa. “Buddle said I wasn’t to disturb you, but I knew that was fudge!” he said scornfully. “Cousin Alverstoke, there is something I particularly wish to ask you!” He broke off, perceiving suddenly, and with disfavour, that his Cousin Alverstoke had an arm round Frederica. Revolted by such a betrayal of unmanliness, he bent a disapproving look upon his idol, and demanded: “Why are you cuddling Frederica, sir?”

“Because we are going to be married,” replied his lordship calmly. “It’s obligatory, you know. One is expected to — er — cuddle the lady one is going to marry.”