“Oh,” said the Duke earnestly, “I was never married to her, you know. No, no, you have that quite wrong! There are no ties binding us, none at all!”

She could not forbear giving him a look of shocked reproach. “No ties, sir?”

“You mean the children, do you?” said the Duke eagerly. “But you will like them excessively! I do not believe there can be better children in the world.”

“Yes, sir, indeed I have always heard—but you do not understand me! It is not on that count that I—pray believe, sir, that what you propose can never be! You must marry some lady of rank, some princess; you know it must be so!”

“Not at all, not at all!” declared the Duke, puffing out his cheeks. “There can be no objection, no hitch of any sort. You are not to be thinking this is cream-pot love, as they say, because, when I am married, you know, Parliament will make me a grant, and I shall pay off my debts, and be all right and tight. We shall do delightfully!”

Miss Taverner got up, and moved away from him to the window. “We should not suit, sir. I thank you for the honour you have done me, but do most earnestly beg you not to distress me by persisting in it. I cannot return your regard.”

The Duke looked very much crestfallen at this, and asked in a desponding voice whether her affections were bestowed elsewhere. “I thought it might be so; I was afraid someone might have been before me, for all I’ve crowded all sail to be first with you.”

“No, sir, my affections are not engaged, but—”

“Oh well, in that case there is no need to be down in the mouth,” said the Duke, brightening. “I have taken you too much by surprise, but when you have thought it over you will see how you will come round to it.”

“I assure you, sir, my resolution is formed. For your friendship, which you have been so kind as to bestow on me, I have the highest value; but anything of a warmer nature—you understand me: I need say no more.”

“No, no, where’s the use in talking?” agreed the Duke. “I have been too quick; you are not well enough acquainted with me yet to give me an answer.”

Miss Taverner began to despair of making any impression on him. She turned. “It is useless, sir. Apart from my own sentiments, you must know that my guardian, Lord Worth, is resolved not to consent to my marriage while I remain his ward. He will not countenance so much as a betrothal. He has said it, and, I believe, means it.”

The Duke looked much struck at this, blinked rapidly once or twice, and began to walk about the room with his hands under his coat-tails. “Well, well! Bless my soul!” he ejaculated. “What should he do that for? This is very odd hearing, upon my word!”

“Yes, sir, but so it is. His mind is made up.”

“The strangest fellow! However, though I am not one to make a great parade of my rank, I hope, I am not quite anybody, and you may depend upon it Worth will sing a different tune when I see him. That is what I shall do; that will be best. I do not set a great deal of store by such things, you know, but I like to have everything ship-shape, and I will get Worth’s permission to pay my addresses. I should like to have it all done with propriety. Ay, that’s the best tack: I must see Worth, and then, you know, you can have no objection. And I’ll tell you what! I have a famous notion in my head now! I will have Worth come to spend Christmas at Bushey with us!”

He beamed upon her with such goodwill, and seemed to have so simple a pride in his famous notion that Miss Taverner had not the heart to protest further. She could only trust in her guardian’s ability to rescue her from her difficulties, and wish the Duke good-day with as much reserve of manner as was compatible with the civility she must feel to be his due. He impressed upon her once more that he should approach her guardian; she assented; and so they parted.

She was not without hope that a period of calm reflection might damp her royal suitor’s ardour; she had no notion of his hurrying off post-haste to call upon Worth, and had every intention of warning the Earl at the first opportunity of what was in store for him.

With this resolve in mind she was glad when, at Almack’s that evening, she perceived her guardian to be present. He was standing beside Lady Jersey when she came in, his handsome head bent to hear what her ladyship was saying, but he soon caught sight of Miss Taverner, and bowed. A very friendly smile brought him across the room to her side to beg the honour of a dance.

Judith, who was looking quite her best in Indian mull muslin draped with gold Brussels lace, expressed her willingness, but before going with him to take her place in the set which was forming, she put out her hand to draw forward Miss Fairford, who had come to the Assembly in Mrs. Scattergood’s charge.

“I think, sir, you are not acquainted with Miss Fairford. Harriet, you must permit me to present Lord Worth.”

Miss Fairford, who, from hearing Peregrine’s unflattering description of his guardian, already stood in considerable awe of him, was quite overpowered by his commanding height and air of consequence. She hardly dared to raise her eyes to his face. He bowed, and said something civil enough to embolden her to peep up at him for a moment. Her soft eyes encountered his hard ones, which seemed to be looking her over with a sort of indifferent criticism. She blushed, and retreated again to Peregrine’s side.

Lord Worth led Judith into the set. “Do you like timid brown mice?” he inquired.

“Sometimes, when they are as good as Miss Fairford,” she replied. “Do not you?”

“I?” he said, lifting his brows. “What a singularly stupid question! No, I do not.”

“I don’t understand why you should call it a stupid question,” said Judith with spirit. “How should I know what you like?”

“You might guess, I imagine, but I shall not gratify your vanity by telling you.”

She gave a start, and shot a quick, indignant look up at him. “Gratify me! That would not gratify me, I assure you!”

“You take too much for granted, Miss Taverner. What would not gratify you?”

She bit her lip. “You lose no opportunity to put me in the wrong, Lord Worth,” she said in a mortified voice.

He smiled, and as their hands joined in the dance pressed hers slightly. “Don’t look so downcast. I did mean just what you thought. Are you satisfied?”

“No, not at all,” said Judith crossly. “This is a foolish conversation; I do not like it. I was glad to see you here to-night, for I wanted particularly to speak to you, but you are in one of your disagreeable moods, I see.”

“On the contrary, my temper is more than usually complaisant. But you are behindhand. I have heard the news, and must wish you joy.”

“Wish me joy?” repeated Judith, looking at him in a startled way. “What can you mean?”

“I understand you are to become a Duchess in the near future. You must allow me to offer you my sincere felicitations.”

They were separated at this moment by the movement of the dance. Judith’s brain, as she went down the set, was whirling; she could scarcely perform her part in the dance, nor contain her impatience till she and Worth came together again. No sooner were they confronting each other once more than she demanded: “How can you talk so? What do you mean?”

“I beg pardon. Is it to be kept a secret?”

“A secret!”

“You must forgive me. I had thought that only my consent was wanting before the engagement was to be made public.”

She turned quite pale. “Good God! You have seen him, then!”

“Certainly. Did you not send him to me?”

“Yes—no! Do not trifle with me! This is dreadful!”

“Dreadful?” said his lordship, maddeningly calm. “You could hardly make a more brilliant match, surely! You will have all the comfort and consequence of a most superior establishment, a position of the first consideration, and a husband who must be past the age of youthful folly. You are to be congratulated; I could not have wished to see you more creditably provided for. In addition you will be assured of suitable female companionship in the person of your eldest daughter-in-law, Miss Fitzclarence, whom I believe to be near your own age.”

“You are laughing at me!” Judith said uncertainly. “I am sure you are laughing at me! Do pray tell me you did not give your consent!”

He smiled, but would not answer. They were again separated, and when they met once more he began to talk in his languid way of something quite different. She answered very much at random, trying to read his face, and when the dance came to an end, suffered him to lead her into the tea-room, away from her own party.

He procured a glass of lemonade for her, and took up a position beside her chair. “Well, my ward,” he said, “did you, or did you not, send Clarence to me?”

“Yes, I did—that is to say, he said he should go to you, and I agreed, because I could not make him realize that I don’t wish to marry him. I thought I might depend on you!”

“Oh!” said Worth. “That is not precisely as I understood the matter. The Duke seemed to be in no doubt of the issue once my consent was obtained.”

“If you thought that I would ever marry a man old enough to be my father you did me a shocking injustice!” said Miss Taverner hotly. “And if you had the amazing impertinence to suppose that his rank must make him acceptable to me you insult me beyond all bearing!”

“Softly, my child: I thought neither of these things,” said his lordship, slightly amused. “My experience of you led me instead to suppose that you had sent your suitor to me in a spirit of pure mischief. Was that an injustice too?”

Miss Taverner was a little mollified, but said stiffly: “Yes, it was, sir. The Duke of Clarence would not believe I meant what I said, and the best I could think of was for you to help me. I made sure you would refuse your consent!”