“You are his guardian, sir.”

“I am aware. I fulfilled my part to admiration when I put his name up for the two most exclusive clubs in London. I cannot remember having done as much for anyone else in the whole course of my existence.”

“You think you did well for Perry when you introduced him to a gaming club?” demanded Judith.

“Certainly.”

“No doubt you will still be thinking so when he has gamed the whole of his fortune away!”

“On one point you may rest assured, Miss Taverner: while I hold the purse-strings Perry will not game his fortune away.”

“And after? What then, when he has learned this passion for gaming?”

“By that time I trust he will be a little wiser,” said the Earl.

“I should have known better than to have come to you,” Judith said bitterly.

He turned his head. “Not at all. You were quite right to come to me. The mistake you made was in thinking that I did not know of Perry’s doings. He is behaving very much as I supposed he would. But you will no doubt have noticed that it is not causing me any particular degree of anxiety.”

“Yes,” said Miss Taverner, with emphasis. “I have noticed it. Your anxiety is kept for whatever it is that you are so busy with.”

“Very true,” he agreed. “I am mixing snuff—an anxious business, Miss Taverner.”

She was momentarily diverted. “Snuff! Do all those jars contain snuff?”

“All of them.”

She cast an amazed, rather scornful glance round the shelves. “You have made it a life-study, I conjecture.”

“Very nearly. But these are not all for my own use. Come here.”

She came reluctantly. He led her round the room, pointing out jars and bottles to her notice. “That is Spanish Bran: it is generally the most popular. That is Macouba, a very strongly scented snuff, for flavouring only. This is Brazil, a large-grained snuff of a fine, though perhaps too powerful flavour. I use it merely to give tone to my mixture. In that bottle is the Regent’s own mixture. It is scented with Otto of Roses. Beside it is a snuff I keep for your sex. It is called Violet Strasbourg—a vile mixture, but generally much liked by females. The Queen uses it.” He took down the jar, and shook a little of the snuff into the palm of his hand, and held it out to her. “Try it.”

An idea had occurred to her. She raised her eyes to his face. “Do many ladies use snuff, Lord Worth?”

“No, not many. Some of the more elderly ones.”

She took a pinch from his hand and sniffed it cautiously. “I don’t like it very much. My father used King’s Martinique.”

“I keep a little of it for certain of my guests. Quite a pleasant snuff, but rather light in character.”

She dusted her fingers with her handkerchief. “If a lady wished to take snuff for the purpose of being a little out of the way, which would she choose, sir?”

He smiled. “She would request either Lord Petersham or Lord Worth to put her up a special recipe to be known as Miss Taverner’s Sort.”

Her eyes gleamed. “Will you do that for me?”

“I will do it for you, Miss Taverner, if you can be trusted to treat it carefully.”

“What must I do?”

“You must not drench it with scent, or let it become too dry, or leave your box where it will grow cold. Good snuff is taken with the chill off. Sleep with it under your pillow, and if it needs freshening send it to me. Don’t attempt anything in that way yourself. It is not easily done.”

“And a snuff-box to match every gown,” said Miss Taverner thoughtfully.

“By all means. But learn first how to handle your box. You cannot do better than to observe the methods of Mr. Brummell. You will notice that he uses one hand only, the left one, and with peculiar grace.”

She began to draw on her gloves again. “I shall be very much obliged to you, sir, if you will have the kindness to make me that recipe,” she said. She realized how far she had drifted from the real object of her visit, and led the conversation ruthlessly back to it. “And you will stop Perry going to gaming hells, and being for ever with this bad set of company?”

“I am quite unable to stop Peregrine doing either of these things, even if I wished to,” replied the Earl calmly. “A little experience will not hurt him.”

“I am to understand, then, that you don’t choose to interest yourself in his affairs, sir?”

“There is not the least likelihood of his attending to me if I did, Miss Taverner.”

“He could be made to attend to you.”

“Do not be alarmed, Miss Taverner. When I see the need of making him attend to me I shall do so, beyond all possibility of being ignored.”

She was not satisfied, but it was obviously of no use to urge him further. She took her leave of him. He escorted her to her phaeton, and was about to go back into the house when he heard himself hailed by a couple of horsemen, who chanced at that moment to be trotting by. One was Lord Alvanley, whose round, smiling face was as usual slightly powdered with the snuff that lingered on his rather fat cheeks; the other was Colonel Hanger, a much older man of very rakish mien.

It was he who had hailed Worth. “Hola, Worth, so that’s the heiress, hey? Devilish fine girl!” he cried out as Miss Taverner’s phaeton disappeared down Holies Street. “Eighty thousand, ain’t it? Lucky dog, hey? Making a match of it, hey?”

“You’re so crude, Colonel,” complained Alvanley.

“Ay, plain Georgy Hanger, that’s me. Take care some brave boy don’t snatch the filly up from under your nose, Julian!”

“I will,” promised the Earl, quite unmoved by this raillery.

The Colonel dug the butt end of his riding-whip at Lord Alvanley. “There’s William here, for instance. Now, what d’ye say, William? They do tell me there’s more to it than the eighty thousand if that young brother were to die. Ain’t that so, Julian?”

“But the chances of death at nineteen are admittedly small,” said the Earl.

“Oh, y’never know!” said the Colonel cheerfully. “Better tie her up quick, before another gets her. There’s Browne, now. He could do with a rich wife, I daresay.”

“If you mean Delabey Browne, I was under the impression that he came into a legacy not so long ago,” replied the Earl.

“Yes,” agreed Lord Alvanley mournfully, “but the stupid fellow muddled the whole fortune away paying tradesmen’s bills.” He nodded to his companion. “Come, Colonel, are you ready?”

They rode off together, and Worth went back into the house. It seemed that the Colonel had reason on his side, for within the space of one fortnight his lordship received no less than three applications for permission to solicit Miss Taverner’s hand in marriage.

The day after he had politely refused his consent to the third aspirant Miss Taverner received a letter by the twopenny post. It was quite short.

“The Earl of Worth presents his compliments to Miss Taverner and begs to inform her that he would be obliged if she would assure any gentleman aspiring to her hand that there is no possibility of his lordship consenting to her marriage within the period of his guardianship.”

Justly incensed, Miss Taverner sat herself down at her elegant little tambour-top writing-table and dashed off an impetuous note, requesting the favour of a visit from his lordship in the immediate future. This she had sent off by hand. A reply in Mr. Blackader’s neat fist informed her that his lordship being upon the point of setting out to spend the weekend at Woburn he was commissioned to tell her that his lordship would do himself the honour of calling in Brook Street some time during the following week.

Miss Taverner tore this civil letter up in a rage. To be obliged to bottle up her wrath at Worth’s daring to refuse all her suitors (none of whom she had the smallest desire to marry) without consulting her wishes, for as much as three days, and very likely more, was so insupportable that she could not face the week-end with any degree of composure.

However, it was not so very bad. A card-party on Saturday helped to pass the time, and Sunday brought her a new and rather awe-inspiring acquaintance.

She and Mrs. Scattergood attended the Chapel Royal for the morning service. Mrs. Scattergood frankly occupied herself with looking about her at the newest fashions, and was not above whispering to her charge when she saw a particularly striking hat, but Miss Taverner, more strictly brought up, tried to keep her mind on what was going forward. This, when all her thoughts were taken up with the impertinence of her guardian having announced that he should not give his consent to her marriage, was not very easy. Her mind wandered during the reading of the first lesson, but was recalled with a jerk.

“And Zacchaeus said: ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor,’”read the clergyman.

A voice which came from someone seated quite near to Miss Taverner suddenly interrupted, saying in a loud hurried way: “Too much, too much! Don’t mind tithes, but can’t stand that!”

There were one or two stifled giggles, and many heads were turned. Mrs. Scattergood, who had craned her neck to see who it was who had lifted up his voice in such an unseemly fashion, nipped Judith’s arm, and whispered urgently: “It’s the Duke of Cambridge. He talks to himself, you know. And I think it is his brother Clarence who is with him, but I cannot quite see. And if it is, my love, I believe it to be a fact that he is parted from Mrs. Jordan, and is looking about him for a rich wife! Only fancy if he should think of you!”

Miss Taverner did not choose to fancy anything so absurd, and quelled her chaperon with a frown.

Mrs. Scattergood was right in her conjecture; it was the Duke of Clarence. He came out of church after the service with Lord and Lady Sefton, a burly, red-faced gentleman with very staring blue eyes and a pear-shaped head. Mrs. Scattergood, who had lingered strategically on the pretext of exchanging greetings with an acquaintance, contrived to be in the way. Lady Sefton bowed and smiled, but the Duke, with his rather protuberant eyes fixed on Miss Taverner, very palpably twitched her sleeve.