Sherry, who had schooled himself to answer such remarks with mechanical civility, found a certain measure of relief in being able to throw off his mask before the friend whom he most trusted. He said abruptly: “It’s not true. Only the tale I’ve put about. She’s left me.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Ringwood.

Sherry gave a short laugh. “You heard me, Gil! She ran away, because I said she was to go down to my mother, at Sheringham Place. She took some absurd notion into her head — all nonsense, of course! — and she was gone before I’d time to explain why I — For naturally I meant to make it all clear to her, and there was no question of — But that’s a female all over!”

Mr Ringwood, helping himself, with extreme deliberation, to a pinch of snuff, said: “Don’t play off your tricks on me, Sherry! The truth is, I take it, that you quarrelled with her over that race?”

“Quarrelled! Gil, do you know what she meant to do? If it had been your wife — ! I was very angry! dash it, any man would have been! But there was not the least occasion for her to have run away from me, as though I had been some deuced brute, or — or — I know it was as much my fault as hers, and, what’s more, I said so. That was not why she ran away! I said she should go to my mother and she did not choose to. Talked some fustian about my mother’s thinking she had ruined my life — fiddle!”

“No wish to say a word against your mother, Sherry, dear boy, but that’s what she has been saying.”

Sherry stared at him. “It’s not possible! I never heard a word of this!”

“Not likely you would,” said Mr Ringwood. “True, for all you may not have heard it. Often thought you don’t pay enough heed to what’s dashed well under your nose, Sherry. Not surprised Kitten wouldn’t go to Sheringham Place. Don’t think her ladyship would have wanted her, either. If you don’t mind my saying so, my dear fellow, the odds are she’d have tried to bully Kitten.”

The Viscount’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, no, she would not!” he said. “She’d have had me to reckon with! And if I’d seen her, or anyone else, bullying my Kitten — ”

“Point is, you wouldn’t have been there to have seen it,” said Mr Ringwood dryly. “Don’t suppose you meant to stay at Sheringham Place, did you?”

“No, but — Well, naturally I should have gone down there from time to time, and — ” He stopped, looking sulky, and rather defensive. “So you think I was wrong to decide to take Kitten there, do you? Much you know about it!”

Mr Ringwood disregarded this rider, and answered frankly: “Yes, I do.”

“But, good God, man, what else could I have done?” Sherry burst out. “We could not have continued as we were! Dash it, we have not been married much above four months, and if you knew the half of the crazy things Kitten would have done had I not been at hand to prevent her — ”

“Ah!” interrupted Mr Ringwood. “Put your finger on it, Sherry, haven’t you? Didn’t do crazy things when you were at hand.”

“In the devil’s name, how could I always be at hand? Did you expect me to change my whole way of living, simply because I was married?”

“Expected you to settle down a trifle, dear boy. Never fancied the notion of it for myself, which is why I’ve stayed single. Seems to me a fellow can’t continue in the same way once he ties himself up. What do you mean to do now?”

“Find her, of course! I made sure she would have gone to my aunt Fakenham, or even to Lady Sefton, but she did not. I tell you I’m at my wits’ end, Gil! What with setting it about she’s indisposed, and fobbing people off, and trying to undo the harm that infernal race caused, and not knowing where to look for her — yes, and being obliged to continue living in this damned house — well, there are moments when I’d like to wring Kitten’s neck! I haven’t had a day’s hunting since she left home; I’ve had to career all over England in search of her; and I’m so worried I can’t sleep at night! Dash it, she’s no more fit to be fending for herself than that canary you gave her! And I don’t need you to tell me I’m responsible for her! I should never have been mad enough to have married a chit out of the schoolroom, and that’s the truth of it!”

Mr Ringwood looked at him under his brows. “Wishing you hadn’t, Sherry?”

“I wish I hadn’t married anyone!” Sherry said petulantly. “Don’t you, Gil! There’s nothing but trouble, and anxiety; and the devil of it is that you can’t alter it, and — no, you don’t even want to! The thing is, I suppose a fellow grows used to having a wife, for all he may not think it, and then — Damnation, I miss her like the devil, Gil!”

“Dare say she’ll come back to you,” said Mr Ringwood, at his most phlegmatic.

“Yes, that’s what I tell myself, and sometimes I believe it. It’s possible she’s playing a trick on me, for she was always the naughtiest chit imaginable! And then I think she ain’t, and when I start wondering what kind of a scrape she may have got herself into by now — well, it ain’t surprising I can’t sleep! If only I had the least notion where to look for her!” He ran a hand through his fair locks. “Isabella is back in town, or so they tell me. She may be able to help me, for she’s known Kitten since they were children. I’ve sent round a note, asking her if she will see me privately. I don’t know if I can trust her not to spread the truth round town, but if Kitten don’t come back soon it will be bound to leak out, so I dare say it makes no odds.”

Mr Ringwood, retiring from this interview in due course, was not ill-satisfied with what he had heard. He told Lord Wrotham that he fancied the business would work out tolerably well, and strongly vetoed his lordship’s suggestion that it was time they told Sherry the truth.

“Damn it, Gil, I don’t like it!” George said. “You don’t know what a man can suffer when the woman he loves — ”

“No reason to think Sherry loves Kitten.”

“I believe he does. He looks dashed ill, and he don’t hunt, or go to the races, or even look in at Watier’s!”

“Won’t do him any harm,” said Mr Ringwood, unmoved by this pathetic picture. “Matter of fact, I think you’re right, and he does love her. But he don’t know it yet, and he’d best find out. Talked of wringing her neck today. Got to go a long way beyond that, George.”

George was so indignant at the thought of anyone’s wanting to wring Hero’s neck that he made no further attempt to persuade Mr Ringwood to relent towards Sherry. The only circumstance which still worried him, he said, was the unhappiness Hero must be suffering. Mr Ringwood agreed to it, but said that it would be better for the poor little soul to be unhappy for a short space now than to grow estranged from Sherry, which was what he feared might have happened had the strange marriage continued along its unsatisfactory course. Moreover, he was able to assure George that Lady Saltash had taken an instant liking to Hero, and, having heard the whole story of the marriage, had accorded her grandson’s intervention her unqualified approval.

What her ladyship had actually said was: “You’re not such a fool as I had thought, Gilbert. Don’t tell me what Anthony said and did! I’ve known that boy since before he was breeched. An engaging scamp, that’s what he is! Go back to London, and take that silly creature, Ferdy Fakenham, with you, for if ever anyone gave me the fidgets it’s he!”

When Sherry visited Miss Milborne, he found her not in quite her usual looks or spirits, but as his mind was wholly occupied by his own troubles, and he was not, in any event an observant young gentleman, he noticed nothing amiss, but plunged immediately into the object of his visit.

She was very much shocked. Unlike his aunt, and Lady Sefton, and Mr Ringwood, she neither said nor believed that Sherry was to blame for Hero’s flight. Never having felt the smallest desire to depart from the strictly conventional herself, the story of the racing engagement quite dismayed her. She could not imagine how any female with the least pretension to elegance of mind, or propriety of taste, could have even listened to such a proposal without a blush of mortification. She could not find it in herself to blame Sherry for having been very much provoked; and she would have extended her warmest sympathy towards him would he but have accepted it. But such was his perversity that no sooner did he find himself in the company of a partisan than he spared no pains to assure her that the fault had been his from start to finish, and that if his Hero had erred in judgment it was through innocence and his own neglect. Miss Milborne thought that such sentiments did him honour, and said so, to which his lordship replied shortly: “Fudge!”

She would have lent him any aid that lay in her power, but with the best will in the world there was nothing she could do, since she had no more idea than he where Hero might have hidden herself. For several years they had not been intimate. Only one idea, and that a painful one, occurred to her. She asked, with a little difficulty, if Sherry had spoken to Lord Wrotham.

“He didn’t know anything,” Sherry replied impatiently. “Thinks she’s in the country, indisposed.”

Miss Milborne rather carefully smoothed out her handkerchief. “I only thought ... It has sometimes seemed to me that — that George displays a marked partiality for Hero, Sherry.”

“Oh, there’s nothing in that!” he said. “Good God, you should know George don’t give a button for any female but yourself!”

Miss Milborne coloured faintly, and looked up as though she would have liked to have said more. But Sherry, having no interest outside his own pressing problem, was already on his feet, and wishing to take his leave. She did not detain him; upon consideration, she did not even know what it was that she wanted to say to him. As she shook hands, she informed him, a little consciously, that she was going into Kent for a time. He accepted this without surprise or interest, and so they parted. Miss Milborne did her best not to fell ill-used, but could not help reflecting that his lordship was a singularly impercipient young man.