“I have no objection to the fact. Do you disapprove of money per se?”

“No, I am excessively fond of it, but…“

She looked, waiting.

“Your Mr. Seville-ah-likes the ladies. Of a certain sort.”

“The sort who use the title Phyrne?”

“Yes, those certainly, and those who use the title Duchess or Baroness even better. It is generally considered he is looking for a title, to ease his own way into the peerage. He cannot mean to marry you; he is well into negotiations with Baroness McFay, and for entertainment he prefers the muslin company. Why do I feel like a child molester telling you these things?”

“I don’t know, but you misjudge him. He is not like that at all. He has very strict notions of propriety.” She toyed with the idea of telling him Seville had feared she was Dammler’s lightskirt, but decided against it.

“Seville! He has no more notion of propriety than a jackrabbit.”

“How can you say so? He’s your friend. You introduced him to me.”

“Yes, and that is why I am worried. I never thought you’d catch his eye. You aren’t his type. I wonder if the old fool has decided to take up with the literary society. Might think it would lend him a vicarious air of intellect. God knows he could use it. He is very proper in his dealings with you?”

“Of course. Oh, he gossips about the ton, but you may be sure he does not take me for any loose piece of baggage.”

“There-I’ve depraved you. For Miss Mallow to be speaking of herself in terms of loose baggage! Well, he is up to something, but apparently it isn’t what we feared. I don’t like the company he introduces to you, however. I wish you would see less of him, or at least not go about with him without some other company. Some respectable married couple, or some such thing.”

“I am not really fond of him. I don’t expect I’ll be seeing much of him-we have little in common.”

“If the old Benedict gets out of hand, call on me, and I’ll come galloping ventre à terre on my white steed to rescue you. Promise me, Prudence.”

“Promise.” She found herself aping his shrug, and felt foolish.

“What a lot of bother you women are. Whoever would have thought I would end up playing Dutch uncle to a little greenhead of a spinster.” Prudence gave a mental wince at this, but concealed it quite well. At least he had come to realize she was not a man.

“Now I have shocked you with my heedless tongue again.” She realized she had not concealed it as well as she thought. “You are only twenty-four, and not a spinster any more, I suppose, since I foolishly induced you to take off your caps. Do me a favour, Miss Mallow, put them back on and start pretending you are forty or so again, so I can stop worrying about you.”

“Don’t worry about me. I have a family to protect me. Worry about Shilla and her Mogul. When is she due to tread the boards?”

“Not this season. It isn’t half done.” He arose. “I’m off, Miss Mallow. May I call on you tomorrow? I’d like you to look over Shilla for me and see what you think of her. There is no one whose opinion I respect more.”

“I should be happy to,” she answered with real pride. Her womanhood had been laid low by his thoughtless words, but how fine to have a poet of Dammler's stature pay her such a compliment.

Chapter 9

The next morning Prudence received two notes, one of them accompanied by a spray of violets, which she had happened to mention liking, from Mr. Seville. He requested her company for a drive that afternoon. Just as well I cannot go with him, she thought, remembering her appointment with Dammler. The other envelope bore a crest, and when she opened it, it was a scrawl of two lines from Dammler. “Miss Mallow: I can’t bring Shilla to you this p.m. after all. She has other plans, and we daren’t buck her. See you soon. Be Prudent about S. Dammler.”

She felt a letdown of no small magnitude, then read the note again for any hidden compliment or insult. It was facetious-but he was always joking. Some business had come up that detained him. There was no one whose opinion he valued more than hers. He would come soon. “Be Prudent about S.” Seville, of course. Strange he hadn’t said what detained him. Had it been herself breaking the appointment, she would have felt a complete explanation necessary. And no explanation occurred to her either which could be important enough to break a date with Dammler. From suspicion she slid easily into jealousy, and she was soon possessed of the idea that Shilla should more accurately read Phyrne. That would account for his not giving her the reason. No doubt a gentleman friend would have understood at a glance what he meant and accepted it. Her eye fell on Mr. Seville’s spray of violets. It never occurred to Dammler to send her a flower. Why should she sit home while he was out enjoying himself? She picked up her pen and accepted Mr. Seville’s offer. A drive in the park was quite unexceptionable, and she was not doing it to spite Dammler. Not the highest stickler could take exception to it, and she hoped she met Dammler head-on with his Phyrne.

Mr. Seville called at three o’clock, carrying a large bouquet of flowers. Her innate sense of taste and comedy laughed at this second shower of blooms in one day, but she accepted the roses with a good grace. “I see you wear my violets next to your heart,” Mr. Seville teased, his brown eyes dancing.

“Be Prudent about S” darted into her head. “Oh, but a spray of flowers is generally worn on the jacket, you know, and the left side is less in the way than the right.”

“They are lucky violets,” he said with a sigh as they went out the door. He let his eye rest long on them, or possibly the bosom beneath them.

“Shall we go, Mr. Seville?”

“Yes, there is no privacy here, in your uncle’s house.” Clarence, informed that Mr. Seville was a nabob, had been fawning.

“Uncle likes to meet my friends,” she explained.

“Yes, that is natural. He seemed not to dislike me,” he said, in an excess of understatement.

“He likes you very much,” Prudence assured him.

“Still, it must be difficult for you, under his roof, with no privacy to meet your friends at your own ease. You, who move in literary circles, must often feel the want of a place of your own.”

“I sometimes feel I could work better if I had a place of my own, but Mama and I are in rather straitened circumstances since my father died.”

“It seems a pity, if money is all that stands in your way.”

“But money is important, especially when you haven’t much of it.”

“A lady like you shouldn’t have to worry about money. You should be dressed in fine gowns and jewels.” Prudence looked down at her very best blue outfit and thought the remark uncalled for. “Real diamonds, I mean, not those little chips you wore the other evening.”

“I am not likely ever to have diamonds. I manage to get along without them.”

“Did you never have a desire to dress yourself in silk and jewels?”

“Occasionally,” she admitted, a vision of Phyrne in her chiffon and diamonds passing through her head.

“You’d take the shine out of them all, Miss Mallow. Countenance-you have countenance. It is your being a literary woman, and so dashed clever. Able to drop a droll word into any conversation and make it sparkle. Better than diamonds. Diamonds can be bought, but wit is inherited, like a title.”

“Or money,” she laughed in agreement, thinking he was not so bad after all.

“Yes, by Jove, like money. Well, there’s more than one way of getting the blunt, what?”

“Yes, one can earn it by hard work.”

“An attractive lady wouldn’t have to work too hard to earn it. A man of means would be happy to share his with her.” Mr. Seville reached out and grabbed her gloved hand. She hardly knew what to think, but she quickly decided to be prudent about S; and recovering her hand, she edged a little closer to her own side of the carriage.

“What a smart phaeton that is,” she said, pointing out the window to where a high-perch phaeton was being tooled past by a very dashing lady. Prudence looked closely to see if she recognized her, but she was having no luck in spotting Dammler and his friend.

“Would you like to have such a rig?”

“Yes, indeed, I’m sure anyone would, though I shouldn’t know how to handle it so well as that lady does.”

“Her nags are nothing out of the ordinary. I have a pair of matched bays, high stepping fillies-smashing they’d look harnessed to a bang-up little phaeton or dormeuse.”

“That sounds very nice. Why don’t you get such a carriage for them, Mr. Seville?”

“I will, by Jove,” he answered promptly. “Anything you like.”

“Only if you like, I meant,” she countered in a little confusion.

“I think we like pretty well the same things,” he said, smiling with satisfaction at his progress.

“Shall we get out and walk a little?” Prudence suggested as they were entering the park, and the carriage suddenly seemed too small.

The Nabob was all complaisance with her every whim. He was gratified to see several eyes turn to watch them. Miss Mallow was becoming known to Society, more through her association with Dammler than through her writings, and Seville was not the only gentleman who was beginning to look in her way. He lacked distinction and knew it. He wanted a mistress who would set him above the common herd, and thought he had hit on a capital idea in having Miss Mallow fill the position. She was not a common lightskirt but a rising star in the literary firmament. As a writer, and such a worldly creature, she would not be aghast at the idea of union out of wedlock, though he fancied he would be her first. The uncle and mother might be a bit of a nuisance, but it was clear as a pikestaff she couldn’t stand the uncle, silly old fool, and the mother could be bought off. Well, the girl had as well as said he’d have to come down heavy. Diamonds and a rigout for the horses were only the beginning of it. He’d have to set her up in style, and let her entertain her friends. Not Dammler, though. He’d draw the line at that.