“He would,” said Mr Ringwood. “But what made you try to call him out, old boy? Not the baby?”

“The baby? Oh, that! Lord, no!”

Mr Ringwood maintained a tactful but not unhopeful silence. Sherry refilled the glasses, and wandered over to the fire, and stirred the log on it with his booted foot. He glanced down at his friend. “This ain’t to go any farther, Gil.”

“Can rely on me, dear boy.”

“Yes, I know. I wouldn’t tell you if I couldn’t. Concerns my wife.”

Mr Ringwood sat up, a look of horror on his countenance. “You ain’t going to tell me that ugly customer — ”

“No, no, it ain’t as bad as that!” Sherry said quickly. He sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, and told his friend, in a few well-chosen words just what had occurred while he was at Newmarket.

Mr Ringwood listened attentively, uttering sounds, at intervals, indicative of his amazement. He had no hesitation in endorsing the construction the Viscount had put upon the episode. He said that it was as plain as the nose on his face; and when he heard of Sir Montagu’s denial he made a derisive noise. By this time the glasses needed to be refilled once more, and when the Viscount had attended to this, both gentlemen spent an agreeable half hour in recalling various incidents in Sir Montagu’s career which did him no credit; and in freely exchanging views on his character and morals which grew steadily more slanderous as the wine sank in the bottle. Their spirits derived much benefit from this exercise, and Mr Ringwood went so far as to state that he had not felt in such a capital way since first Revesby appeared on his horizon. “All for the best, Sherry, you mark my words! As long as he don’t try to play off any more of his tricks on your wife, and he’s such a chickenhearted fellow I don’t suppose he would dare to, now that he knows you’ve smoked him. All the same, you’d best keep your eye on him, dear old boy.”

“I mean to,” Sherry replied. “Yes, and on Kitten too, my God! You know, Gil it’s the devil of a business! Beginning to keep me awake, I can tell you! It ain’t that she means to get into these curst scrapes. But — oh well!”

Mr Ringwood studied the wine in his glass.

“Wouldn’t do anything she thought you might not like, Sherry,” he said tentatively.

“I know that, but the devil of it is she thinks I shall like the most shocking things!” Sherry said. “What with her taking every word I say to be Gospel-truth, and fancying that whatever I do must be the correct thing — well, it’s enough to turn a fellow’s hair white, it is really, Gil! She would never have thought to go to those bloodsuckers, for instance, if I had not been fool enough to say I’d had dealings with them. And I’m dashed if she didn’t plunge deeper the more she lost at that damned house, all because that’s the gudgeon’s trick I’ve been playing myself! Fairly made my blood run cold when I found that out!”

Mr Ringwood agreed that this was certainly enough to shake any man’s nerve; but said after a short pause: “You know what I think, Sherry?”

“Yes: that she don’t mean any harm,” replied Sherry. “You’ve said it before — in fact, you’re always saying it! — and I know it without your telling me.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” said Mr Ringwood. “Going to say, she don’t make the same mistake twice. Noticed it.”

“Well, I don’t see anything in that,” replied his lordship impatiently.

“No. There’s a deal you don’t see, Sherry. Thought so several times,” said Mr Ringwood, and relapsed into meditative silence.

The Viscount was not one to waste his time speculating on the significance of cryptic utterances, and he therefore paid no heed to his friend’s words. He had by this time wound up the Gillingham affair, as he called it; and although this process had entailed one or two disagreeable economies, such as the sale of several of his horses, he was inclined to think that he had come out of it better than might have been expected. The truth was that he had been taken aback by the figures laid before him by his man of business. He had not thought that he could have spent so much money. It had been clearly demonstrated to him that his losses over the gaming-table had been excessive, and since he was not so much addicted to gaming as the past year’s exploits would have appeared to indicate he was able to resolve, with tolerable equanimity, drastically to regulate this pastime. At any other time of the year boredom might have driven him back to the tables, but the Viscount was a bruising rider to hounds, and the hunting season was in full swing. He spent a considerable part of his time in Leicestershire, and the only thing that could have been said to have in any way clouded his enjoyment was the growing tendency in himself to wonder what Hero might be doing during his absence.

But Hero was making great efforts to keep out of scrapes, and except for driving down St James’s Street in her phaeton, she committed no very serious social solecisms. She accompanied Sherry to Melton for one week, entertaining Ferdy and Mr Ringwood at the hunting-box, but as she insisted on riding to hounds and followed Sherry’s line with touching if misplaced confidence in his wisdom, he refused point-blank to repeat the experiment. In this he was supported by his two friends, both of whom had had their day’s sport ruined by the bride’s intrepid behaviour. Since she followed Sherry, she had not committed the crime of riding over hounds, but even Mr Ringwood admitted that no one could place the slightest dependence on her conducting herself with propriety or discretion on the field.

Lord Wrotham was spending much of his time in Leicestershire too, his last quarrel with Miss Milborne having led to an estrangement between them which was rather skillfully fostered by the Beauty’s hard-headed parent. This lady’s hopes were running very high, Severn’s attentions having become marked enough to have reached his mother’s ears. The Duchess arrived unexpectedly in London, bringing with her a formidable entourage which included her chaplain, housekeeper, steward, and a depressed female of uncertain years and crushed demeanour who appeared to fulfil the functions of a lady-in-waiting. The odds being offered at the clubs against his grace’s coming up to scratch immediately lengthened; but when it was known that the Duchess had called in state in Green Street, those with handsome sums at stake fairly held their breaths. No one, of course, knew what passed during this morning call, but those who were best acquainted with the Duchess described her demeanour towards the Milbornes at the next Assembly night as extremely gracious. George, who was not well-acquainted with her, could detect no trace of affability in her Roman countenance, and considered her bearing to denote nothing beyond pride and self-consequence. His spirits soared, accordingly, but were soon cast down by the incredible news that her grace had invited Mrs Milborne and her daughter to spend Christmas at Severn Towers.

It was too true. The Duchess, finding her usually tractable son displaying an obstinacy which reminded her forcibly of the deceased gentleman to whom she was in the habit of referring as ‘your poor father’, was preparing to make the best of matters. She had indeed been agreeably surprised in Isabella. The most searching of inquiries having failed to bring to light any discreditable circumstance in the Milborne lineage, she permitted herself to describe Isabella as a pretty-behaved young female, an encomium which caused her son to become wreathed in smiles, and to exclaim gratefully: “I was certain you would be vastly taken with her, ma’am!”

When George heard of the projected visit to Severn Towers he lost no time in presenting himself in Green Street. He was fortunate enough to choose a moment when Mrs Milborne was out, and thus gained access to the Beauty. Without preamble, he demanded to be told if the news were true, and, upon Miss Milborne’s admitting that her grace had indeed issued the invitation, conducted himself with so little restraint that Isabella, who had been wavering between a natural desire to make one of a ducal house party and a maidenly disinclination to give Severn the encouragement which an acceptance of the invitation must imply, quite lost her temper, and not only declared her intention of doing precisely as she pleased, but added the rider that her actions were no concern of Lord Wrotham. His lordship then so far forgot himself as to seize her in his arms, enfolding her in a crushing embrace and covering her face with kisses. How Miss Milborne might have reacted to this treatment had her Mama’s butler not chanced at that moment to open the door and to announce the Misses Bagshot no one, least of all herself, could have guessed. In the event, she was furious, and had she not been a very well-brought-up girl she would have slapped George’s face. The violence of his ardour had disarranged her hair, she knew herself to be blushing hotly, realized from the butler’s expression that he had been a witness of George’s passion, and saw that Cassy and Eudora, though they might not have been in time to surprise her in George’s arms, had a tolerably exact notion of what had been going forward. She could have screamed with vexation; and when Mrs Milborne came home she was pleasantly surprised to find that the daughter whom she had left recalcitrant had suddenly become as malleable as the most exacting parent could wish. In fact, Miss Milborne was ready to oblige her Mama by spending Christmas at Severn Towers after all.

Lord Wrotham, dissuaded by his friends from putting a pistol to his head, sought a modicum of relief by quarrelling with the utmost violence with any gentleman obliging or foolhardy enough to join issue with him. He found three. One was Sherry, who succeeded in drawing the distracted lover’s cork during the course of several spirited rounds; another was the Honourable Marmaduke Fakenham, who capped every insult flung at him with zest and aplomb, and then very meanly refused to give poor George the satisfaction he craved; and the third was a total stranger who had the ill fortune to jostle George in a doorway, and who showed himself so ready to take umbrage at George’s subsequent behaviour that it was manifest he had no notion with whom he had to deal. However, Ferdy and the inarticulate Mr Gumley, who happened to be present, hastily drew him aside, and divulged George’s identity before he had had time actually to commit himself.