“Oh!” said Judith. “I hope she will. Has she only the one daughter?”

“Oh no, I believe she has a numerous family, but Miss Fairford is the only one out. Her name,” said Peregrine rapturously, “is Harriet.”

Miss Taverner knew her duty, and immediately replied: “What a pretty name, to be sure!”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” said Peregrine. “She—I think she is very pretty too. I do not know how she may strike you, but I certainly consider her uncommonly handsome.”

“Is she dark or fair?” inquired his sister.

But to this question he could not give any very certain answer. He rather thought Miss Fairford’s eyes were blue, but they might be grey: he could not be sure. She was not tall, quite the reverse, yet Judith must not be imagining a dab of a girl. It was no such thing: but she would see for herself.

After a good deal in this strain he took himself off to bed, leaving his sister to her reflections.

She had not been used to see him in the toils of a young woman, and could hardly be blamed for feeling a certain jealousy. She did her best to banish it, and succeeded very fairly. When Lady Fairford, who turned out to be a kindly sensible woman in the early forties, came to pay her promised call, she did bring her eldest daughter with her, and Judith had leisure to observe Peregrine’s charmer.

Miss Fairford was not long out of the schoolroom, and had all the natural shyness of her seventeen years. She regarded Judith out of a pair of large dove-like eyes with a great deal of awe, coloured a little when directly addressed, and allowed her soft mouth to tremble into a fugitive, appealing smile. She had pretty brown curls, and a neat figure, but to Judith, who was built on Junoesque lines, she could not seem other than short.

When Peregrine came in, which he presently did, Lady Fairford greeted him with marked complaisance, and took the opportunity to beg the company both of him and his sister to dinner on the following Tuesday. The invitation was accepted: Peregrine had in fact accepted it before Judith could recollect her own engagements. On the pretext of showing Miss Fairford a book of views which Judith had previously been looking at, he contrived to draw her a little apart, a manoeuvre which was observed by the lady’s mama without provoking her to any other sign than a faint smile. Miss Taverner concluded that her visitor would be inclined to look favourably upon a possible match. She was not surprised. Peregrine was well-born, handsome, and possessed of a large fortune. No mother with five daughters to see suitably established, could be blamed for giving so eligible a suitor just a little encouragement.

Upon inquiry, the Fairfords were found to be a very respectable family living in good style in Albemarle Street. They moved in the best circles, without aspiring to belong to the Carlton House set; had one son in the army, one at present at Oxford, and a third at Eton.

When Tuesday came the company invited to dinner was found to be not numerous, but extremely select, and the party went off without any other hitch than that occasioned by Lord Dudley and Ward, who, from the circumstance of his being excessively absent-minded and fancying himself in his own house, apologized very audibly to Miss Taverner for the badness of one of the entrees. He said that the cook was ill.

The gentlemen soon joined the ladies after dinner; a whist-table was formed, and the rest of the party sat down, some to play a few rubbers of Casino, and the rest to a game of lottery tickets. Miss Fairford having placed herself at the lottery-table, Judith was amused but not surprised to see Peregrine taking a chair beside her. She reflected with an inward smile that this was just such an evening as a week ago he would have voted very poor sport.

Chapter VIII

Contrary to his sister’s expectations, Peregrine’s infatuation for Miss Fairford showed no sign of abating. He continued to go about town a great deal, but whenever opportunity offered he was to be found, if not on the Fairford doorstep, certainly at any party where they were likely to be present. Miss Taverner informed her cousin that she did not know whether to be cross or glad. A love-lorn Peregrine was tiresome, but if Miss Fairford’s attractions could keep him out of gaming clubs and taverns she must certainly be glad. When she found his thoughts to be dwelling on marriage she was a little dubious. He seemed to her to be too young to be thinking of such a thing.

However that might be, within one month of having met Miss Fairford he had come to such a good understanding with her that he took his courage in both hands, and sought an interview with her parents.

Lady Fairford, who besides wishing to see her daughter so triumphantly bestowed, was in a fair way to loving Peregrine quite for his own sake, showed a marked inclination to accept him into her family without any more ado, but Sir Geoffrey, with greater common sense, thought the young couple would do well to wait. He was by no means anxious to lose his daughter, and might conceivably feel some doubt of her suitor’s stability, but even he must feel that the match would be a better one than he had ever hoped to see his Harriet make. He would not forbid the engagement, but his notions of propriety, which were very nice, made him refuse to listen to any offer that was made without Lord Worth’s knowledge or approval.

This pronouncement had the effect of sending Peregrine off hot-foot to his guardian. Worth, however, proved to be somewhat elusive. Three consecutive calls at his house failed to discover him, and after an abortive attempt to compose a letter which should explain everything to his lordship, Peregrine hit upon the notion of looking for him at his clubs.

This plan was more successful. After being told at White’s that the Earl had gone out of town, and at the Alfred that he had not been inside the club for six months, he finally ran him to earth at Watier’s, where he was playing macao.

“Oh!” said Peregrine. “So you are here! I have been searching for you all over town!”

The Earl cast him a look of faint surprise, and gathered up his cards. “Well, now that you have found me, do you think you could sit down—keeping me under observation, if you like—until after the game?” he said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you!” said Peregrine. “Only they told me at White’s you were out of town, and when I called at the Alfred they said you had not been there for months.”

“Come and take a hand,” said Lord Alvanley kindly. “You should not have wasted your time at the Half-Read, my boy. They have seventeen bishops there, so I hear. Worth and I gave it up after the eighth. As for White’s, it is my belief Worth taught them always to say he was out of town. Do you care to join us?”

Peregrine, much flattered, thanked him, and took a place between Sir Henry Mildmay and a gentleman with very red hair and very blue eyes, whom he discovered later to be Lord Yarmouth. The stakes at the table were extremely high, and he soon found that his luck was quite out. This did not trouble him much, for he did not think Worth could very well refuse to pay any debts he might incur over and above what little remained of the quarter’s allowance. He took his losses in good part, and cheerfully wrote a number of I O Us, which Worth, who held the bank, accepted with an unmoved countenance.

Mr. Brummell, who had come over to observe the game, lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. The hour was considerably advanced, and the table broke up before the bank changed hands. Mr. Brummell took the Earl away with him in search of iced champagne, and murmured: “Must he play at your table, Julian? Really, you know, it does not look well.”

“Young fool,” said the Earl, unemotionally.

“Just a little out of place,” said Brummell, taking a glass from the tray a waiter was presenting to him.

The Duke of Bedford came up at that moment with Lord Frederick Bentinck and Mr. Skeffington, forming the nucleus of the circle that very soon gathered round Mr. Brummell, and nothing more was said of Peregrine and his losses. The Duke, who was a great personal friend of the Beau, wanted his opinion on a matter of some importance. “Now George, tell me!” he said earnestly. “I have changed my tailor, you know, and this is the coat my new man has made for me. What do you say? Will it answer? Do you like the cut of it?”

Mr. Brummell continued to sip his champagne, but over the rim of his glass he gazed thoughtfully at his grace, while the circle about him waited in interested silence for his verdict. The Duke stood anxiously showing himself off. Mr. Brummell’s eyes dwelled for an appreciable time upon the coat’s very bright gilt buttons; he gave a faint sigh and the Duke blenched.

“It sets well; I like the long tails,” said Lord Frederick. “Who made it, Duke? Nugee?”

“Turn round,” said Mr. Brummell.

The Duke pivoted obediently, and stood craning his head over his shoulder to see what effect this aspect of the garment produced on the Beau. Mr. Brummell examined him from head to foot, and walked slowly round him. He studied the length of the tails, and pursed his lips; he observed the cut across the shoulders, and raised his brows. Lastly, he took one of the lapels between his finger and thumb, and carefully felt it. “Bedford,” he said earnestly, “do you call this thing a coat?”

The Duke, with a ludicrous expression, half of dismay, half of amusement, on his face, interrupted the laughter of the circle. “No, really, George, that’s too bad of you! Upon my word, I have a good mind to call you out for it!”

“You may call me, Bedford, but there it will end, I warn you,” replied Brummell. “I haven’t the least intention of putting a period to my existence in such a hideous way as that.”