“Oh, Annis, pray don’t be vexed!” Lady Wychwood said imploringly. “I would never have ventured to presume—I was perfectly sure you would never do anything imprudent! I begged Geoffrey not to meddle! Indeed, I went so far as to say that nothing would prevail on me to come to stay with you! I was never nearer falling into a quarrel with him, for I knew how bitterly you would resent such interference!”

“I do resent it, and wish very much you hadn’t yielded to Geoffrey,” Annis replied. “But that’s past praying for, I collect! Oh, don’t cry! I am not angry with you,love!”

Lady Wychwood wiped away her starting tears, and said, with a sob in her voice: “But you are angry with Geoffrey, and I cannot bear you to be!”

“Well, that too is past praying for!”

“No, no, don’t say so! If you knew how anxious he has been! how fond he is of you!”

“I don’t doubt it. Each of us has a good deal of fondness for the other, but we are never so fond as when we are apart, as you know well! His fondness doesn’t lead to the smallest understanding of my character. He persists in believing me to be a sort of bouncing, flouncing girl, with no more rumgumption than a moonling, who is so caper-witted as to stand in constant need of guidance, admonition, prohibition, and censure from an elder brother who thinks himself far wiser than she is, but—if you will forgive me for saying so—very much mistakes the matter!”

These forceful words made the gentle Amabel quail, but she tried, bravely, to defend her adored husband from his sister’s strictures. “You wrong him, dearest! indeed, you do! He is for ever telling people how clever you are—needle-witted, he calls it! He is excessively proud of your wit, and your beauty, but—but he knows—as how should he not?—that in worldly matters you are not as experienced as he is, and—and his dread is that you may be taken-in by—by a man of the town,which he tells me this Mr Carleton is!”

“I wonder what it was that gave poor Geoffrey such a dislike of Mr Carleton?” said Annis, considerably amused. “I would hazard a guess that he received from him, at some time or another, one of his ruthless set-downs. I remember that Geoffrey told me he was the rudest man in London, which I don’t find it difficult to believe! He is certainly the rudest man I ever encountered!”

“Annis,” said Lady Wychwood, impressively sinking her voice, “Geoffrey has informed me that he is a libertine!”

“Oh, no! Has he sullied your ears with that word?” Annis exclaimed, her eyes and her voice brimming over with laughter. “He didn’t sully my virgin ears with it! It was what he meant, of course, when he said that Mr Carleton was an ugly customer whom he would not dream of presenting to me, but when I asked him if it was what he meant all the answer he made was to deplore my want of delicacy of mind! Well! You and I, Amabel, cut our eye-teeth years ago, so let us, for God’s sake, have the word with no bark on it! I should be amazed if a bachelor of Mr Carleton’s age had had no dealings with straw damsels, but I am still more amazed at his apparent success in that line! It must, I conjecture, be due to his wealth, for it cannot have been due to his address, for he has none! From the moment of our first meeting, he has neglected very few opportunities to be unpardonably uncivil to me, even going to the length of informing me that Maria had no need to fear he was trying to seduce me, because he had no such intention.”

“Annis!” gasped her ladyship. “You must be funning! He could not have said anything so—so abominably rude to you!”

She obviously was more shocked by this evidence of Mr Carleton’s crude manners than by Sir Geoffrey’s allegation that he was a profligate. Miss Wychwood’s eyes began to dance; but all she said was: “Wait until you have met him!”

“I hope never to be compelled to meet him!” retorted Amabel, the picture of affronted virtue.

“But you will be bound to meet him!” Annis said reasonably. “Recollect that his niece—and ward—is in my charge! He comes frequently to this house, to assure himself that I am not permitting her to encourage the advances of such gazetted fortune-hunters as Denis Kilbride, or to overstep the bounds of the strictest propriety. He does not, if you please, consider me a fit and proper person to have charge of Lucilla, and doesn’t scruple to say so! I’m told it is always so with loose-screws: they become downright prudes where the females of their own families are concerned! I imagine that must be because they know too much about the wiles of seducers—from their own experiences! Besides, my dear, how can you possibly protect me from him if you run out of the room the instant he is ushered into it?”

Lady Wychwood could find no answer to this, except to say, weakly, that she had told Geoffrey that no good could come of his insisting on her going to stay in Camden Place.

“None at all!” agreed Annis. “But don’t let that cast you in the mops, love! I hope I have no need to assure you that I am always happy to welcome you to my house!”

“Dear, dear Annis!” uttered Lady Wychwood, powerfully affected, and wiping away a fresh flow of tears from her brimming eyes. “Always so kind! So much kinder to me than my own sisters! Believe me, one of the wishes nearest to my heart is to see you happily married, to a man worthy of you!”

“Beckenham?” enquired Annis. “I don’t think I’m acquainted with anyone worthier than he is!”

“Alas, no! I wish very much that he had been able to fix his interest with you, but I know there is no chance of that: you think him a bore, and a bobbing-block, and—I sometimes think—are blind to all his excellent qualities.”

“Oh, no! He is stuffed with good qualities, but the melancholy truth is that however much I may respect a man’s good qualities they don’t inspire me with a particle of love for him! I shall either marry a man stuffed with bad qualities, or remain a spinster—which is the likeliest fate to befall me! Don’t let us talk any more about my future! Tell me about yourself!”

But Lady Wychwood said that there was nothing to tell. Annis asked her whether she indeed meant to take a course of Russian vapour-baths. This made her giggle. “Oh, no, and so I told Geoffrey!”

“Well, he depends on me to persuade you to do so! I told him that I should deem it an impertinence to do any such thing. Is it true that you have been out of sorts?”

“No, no! That is to say, I had a slight cold, but it was nothing! And then, of course, I had all the anxiety about Tom, which has made me look horridly hagged. I daresay that was what made Geoffrey get into one of his ways. Perhaps I might drink the waters, just—just to satisfy him! After all, that can’t do me any harm!”

“Unless they make you feel as sick as I did, the only time I ever took a glass! We shall soon see! Since Lucilla came to stay with me I have visited the Pump Room almost every day, so that she can meet her new friend, who accompanies her mother to the Pump Room. I fancy you have met Mrs Stinchcombe: did she not come to dinner here when you and Geoffrey visited me last year?”

“Oh, yes! A most agreeable woman! I remember her very well, and shall be happy to renew my acquaintance with her. But this Lucilla of yours! Where is she?”

“You will see her presently. She has gone to take a walk in the Sydney Garden, with Corisande and Edith Stinchcombe. She and Corisande have become almost inseparable, for which I am truly thankful! I am extremely attached to the child, but I own I find it more than a little boring to be obliged to go everywhere with her! Chaperonage is no light task, I promise you!”

“No, indeed! I was shocked when I heard that you had taken it upon yourself to look after Miss Carleton. You are much too young to be any girl’s duenna, no matter who she may be. Geoffrey thought you should have restored her to her aunt, and I must own I cannot but feel he was quite right. I don’t mean to say that she is not an agreeable girl: Geoffrey was pleasantly surprised by her manners, which he tells me are very pretty—but what a responsibility to have assumed, dearest! I cannot like it for you.”

“Well, if she were to be with me permanently I shouldn’t like it either,” admitted Miss Wychwood. “She is a lovely little innocent, had never been in Society—what she calls ‘grown-up’ parties—until she came to Bath, and made an instant hit! Already she has I know not how many young men dangling after her, which makes it necessary for me to keep a strict watch over her. To make matters worse, she is a considerable heiress: a sure bait for fortune-hunters! Fortunately, the Stinchcombes have a governess to whom the girls are devoted—even Lucilla likes her, having previously taken the whole race of governesses in detestation!—and so I am able to relinquish Lucilla into her care when it is a question of going for walks, or buying fripperies in the town. I only wish the Stinchcombes lived in Camden Place, but they don’t! They have a house in Laura Place, so that I am obliged to provide Lucilla with an escort when she visits them. However, Mr Carleton gave me leave to engage a maid for her, who, I judge, is to be trusted to fill my place at need.”

“But, Annis, is it so necessary to chaperon girls in Bath? Why, even in London my sisters tell me that nowadays it is quite unremarkable to see two girls walking together without even a footman coming behind them!”

“Two girls, yes!” said Miss Wychwood. “But not one girl alone, I think! Mrs Stinchcombe is an indulgent parent but I am very sure she would not permit Corisande to come up to Camden Place unattended. And in Lucilla’s case—no, no! Out of the question! Mr Carleton has, however reluctantly, confided her to my care until he has made other arrangements for her, and what a horrid fix I should be in if I let her come to harm!”