Being blessed with the friendliest of natures, Miss Wantage accepted Mr Ringwood with perfect complaisance. Upon being told that Gil would take care of her while his lordship was otherwise engaged, she smiled confidingly at him, and said: “Oh yes! Thank you! How kind it is in you! Will you take me to buy a hat for the wedding, please? Sherry made me buy this one I have on, because he told everyone I was going to school in Bath, but I will not wear it for my wedding!”

“Well, you need not,” replied Sherry. “But mind, Kitten, you are not to choose what Gil don’t like!”

“Oh no, indeed I won’t.”

The horrified Mr Ringwood made an inarticulate noise in his throat. It was not attended to. Sherry instructed him to be firm with Miss Wantage, and — in an under-voice — for God’s sake not to let her buy a hat more suited to a chere-amie than to a lady of Quality! Mr Ringwood, no lady’s man, was understood to say that really — no, really! — he knew nothing about such matters, but the Viscount summarily disposed of this objection and returned to the vexed question of abigails. Miss Wantage seemed surprised, but gratified, to learn that she was to have an abigail, but since she had no notion how to set about acquiring one, she was unable to help his lordship. Mr Ringwood then had the brilliant idea of laying the matter before Chilham. This found instant favour with Sherry, who said that he would drive straight back to Stratton Street as soon as he had paid Miss Wantage’s reckoning.

“And that reminds me!” he said suddenly. “Where the deuce are we going to stay?”

“Stay?” repeated Mr Ringwood. “Dash it, Gil, we shall have to put up somewhere until I decide where we are to live!”

“But — Are you meaning to stay in town, Sherry?” asked Mr Ringwood, with ideas of honeymoons chasing one another through his head.

“Of course we’re going to stay in town! Where the devil else should we stay? But I won’t stay at this place, and so I tell you! Of all the stuffy — Besides, we couldn’t stay here. They think Kitten’s on her way to school.”

“Well, you’ve got a house, dear old boy — very fine house! Best part of the town — excellent address — Why not go there?”

“I suppose it will come to that in the end,” agreed Sherry, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “But I can’t take possession of it before I’ve told my mother I want it. We shall have to put up at an hotel in the meantime. Only thing is, which hotel?”

“There’s Limmer’s,” suggested Mr Ringwood doubtfully.

“Limmer’s!” ejaculated the Viscount. “With all the Pets of the Fancy for the chit to hobnob with! As well take her to the Castle Tavern!”

Mr Ringwood, much confused, begged pardon, and once more searched his brain. He bethought him of Ellis’s; and after the Viscount had spurned this hostelry with a loathing engendered by his having once dined there with his mother, rejected a suggestion that Graham’s was said to be comfortable, and, on the somewhat obscure grounds of having an aunt who used to stay here, refused to enter the portals of Symon’s, it was decided that the young couple should take up their temporary abode at Fenton’s in St James’s Street.

“Well, now that we’ve settled that, I’d best be off to go with George to visit this curst Bishop of his,” said his lordship. He added, not without a touch of disapproval: “Queer start, that: George being acquainted with a Bishop. Shouldn’t have thought it of him.”

“No, I shouldn’t either,” agreed Mr Ringwood. “Of course you do get ’em in the family sometimes. Thing that might happen to anyone.”

“Yes, but you don’t know ’em,” Sherry pointed out. “Besides, he didn’t say this one was a relation of his. Very odd fellow, George.”

“You know what I think about George, Sherry?” Mr Ringwood said, as one who had given much consideration to the subject. “It’s a pity he’s such a devil of a fellow with the pistols. Makes it deuced awkward, sometimes, being a friend of his, because there’s no knowing when he’ll take one of his pets, and then nothing will do for him but to call one out. At least, I don’t mean that, precisely, because it stands to reason no one’s going to go out with George, unless they can’t help themselves, but the thing is he ain’t happy. Pity!”

“Oh, I don’t know!” said Sherry. “He was never as bad until the Incomparable came to town. Don’t pay much heed to him, myself. How long will it take me to fork this Bishop of his for that licence, do you suppose? I mean, where are we to meet?”

Mr Ringwood having no ideas to advance on the probable length of time this delicate operation would need, it was decided, after a good deal of argument, that as soon as Miss Wantage had accomplished her shopping, she should be escorted to the Viscount’s lodging, where he engaged himself to meet her. The party then broke up, Sherry going off to pick up Lord Wrotham, who had returned home to change his Belcher handkerchief for a neckcloth more in keeping with the exalted company he was to seek; and Mr Ringwood sallying forth with Miss Wantage in the direction of Bond Street.

Any idea he might have cherished of being able within an hour or two to relinquish his charge into her betrothed’s keeping was put an end to by the discovery, when they repaired to the Viscount’s lodging shortly after noon, that his lordship proposed to meet his Hero only at the Church door. He had left a hastily scribbled note for Mr Ringwood, informing that everything was in a way to being fixed right and tight; and that he relied upon his friend to bring the bride to St George’s, Hanover Square, not a moment later than half past two o’clock.

Mr Ringwood, who was by this time on very friendly terms with the most unexacting young lady he had so far encountered, communicated the contents of the note to her, and said: “Well, what would you care to do now, I wonder?”

“I could wait here,” offered Miss Wantage, in a tone which indicated that she would consider such a course pretty flat.

“No, that won’t do,” Mr Ringwood said, frowning. “I think I had best take you to eat a little luncheon. After that — ” He paused, eyeing her speculatively.

Miss Wantage returned his gaze with one of pleasurable expectation. “I know what you’d like!” he said. “You’d like to see the wild beasts at the Royal Exchange!”

Nothing could have appealed more strongly to Miss Wantage’s youthful taste, so as soon as she had changed the chipstraw hat for an Angouleme bonnet of white threadnet trimmed with lace, she sallied forth once more with Mr Ringwood, tripping beside him with all the assurance of one who knew herself to be dressed in the pink of fashion. The Angouleme bonnet most becomingly framed her face; she had taken great pains to comb her curls into modish ringlets; and if the figured muslin gown was less dashing than a certain pomona green silk which Mr Ringwood had assured her, in some agitation, Sherry wouldn’t like at all, no fault could be found with her little blue kid shoes, or her expensive gloves and reticule, or with the sophisticated sunshade which she carried to the imminent danger of the passers by.

They were a trifle late in arriving at the Church, owing to Mr Ringwood’s having made an unfortunate reference during the course of the afternoon to the Pantheon Bazaar. Miss Wantage had immediately demanded to be taken to this mart, and had enjoyed herself hugely there, dragging Mr Ringwood from shop to shop, and alarming him very much by developing a sudden desire to become the possessor of a canary in a gilded cage, which happened to catch her eye. Mr Ringwood was as wax in her hands, but he had a very fair notion of what his friend’s feelings would be on being met at the Church door by a bride carrying a bird in a cage, and he said desperately that Sherry wouldn’t like it. He had very little hope of being attended to, but to his surprise he found that these simple words acted like a talisman on his volatile companion. So although the hackney which conveyed them from the Bazaar to Hanover Square might be rather full of packages and bandboxes, at least it contained no livestock, a circumstance upon which Mr Ringwood considered he had reason to congratulate himself.

Not only Sherry was awaiting them in the Church porch, but the Honourable Ferdy Fakenham as well, whom he had brought along to support him on this momentous occasion. Both gentlemen were very nattily attired in blue coats, pale pantaloons, gleaming Hessians, uncomfortably high shirt collars, and exquisitely arranged cravats, the Honourable Ferdy sporting, besides (for he was a very Tulip of Fashion), a long ebony cane, lavender gloves, and a most elegant buttonhole of clove pinks. It was Ferdy who had procured a nosegay for the bride to carry, and the bow with which he presented it to her had made him famous in Polite Circles.

“Hallo, Kitten, that’s a devilish fetching bonnet!” said the Viscount, by way of greeting. “But what the deuce made you late? You had best pay off the hack, Gil: no saying how long we shall be here.”

“No, Sherry. Keep the hack!” said Mr Ringwood firmly.

“Why? If we want a hack, we can call up another, can’t we?”

“The thing is, Sherry, there are one or two packages in it,” explained Mr Ringwood, a little guiltily.

The Viscount stared at him, and then took a look inside the vehicle. “One or two packages!” he exclaimed. “Good God! What the deuce possessed you to bring a lot of bandboxes to a wedding?”

“Oh, Sherry, they are things I bought at the Pantheon Bazaar!” said Miss Wantage. “And we had not time to take them to your lodging, and I am very sorry if you do not like it, but I didn’t buy the canary which I wanted!”

“My God!” said the Viscount, realizing his narrow escape.