‘Have you told Ianthe that I am here?’ at once demanded Sylvester.

‘Good God, no! I wouldn’t tell her for the world!’ replied Sir Nugent, shocked. ‘Particularly now. She is very much distressed. Feels it just as I knew she must. You will have to steal the boy while we are asleep. In the middle of the night, you know.’

‘I shall do nothing so improper!’

‘Don’t take me up so!’ said Sir Nugent fretfully. ‘No impropriety at all! You are thinking you would be obliged to creep into Miss Marlow’s bedchamber-’

‘I am thinking nothing of the sort!’ said Sylvester, with considerable asperity.

‘There you go again!’ complained Sir Nugent. ‘Dashed well snapping off my nose the instant I open my mouth! No question of creeping into her room: she’ll bring the boy out to you. You’ll have to take her along with you, of course, and I’m not sure that Orde hadn’t better go too, because you never know but what her la’ship might bubble the hoax if he stayed behind. The thing is-’

‘You needn’t tell me!-Thomas, either you may stop laughing, or I leave you to rot here!-Understand me, Fotherby! I have no need to steal my ward! Neither you nor Ianthe has the power to prevent my removing him. Well, though I am going to do so I have enough respect for her sensibility as to wish not only to inform her of my intention, but to assure her that every care shall be taken of the boy. Now perhaps you will either conduct me to Ianthe, or go to tell her yourself that I am taking Edmund home tomorrow!’

‘No, I won’t,’ said Sir Nugent. ‘You may have the right to do it-well, I know you have! asked my attorney!-but does her la’ship know it? What I mean is will she own she knows it? If you think she will, Duke, all I can say is that you don’t know much about females! Which is absurd, because you don’t bamboozle me into believing you didn’t offer a carte blanche, not a year after your come-out, to-what was that little lightskirt’s name? You know the one I mean! A regular high flyer, with yaller curls, and-’

‘We will leave my affairs out of this discussion!’ said Sylvester, rigid with anger.

‘Oh, just as you wish! Not but what I’ve often wanted to ask you- However, I can see you’ll fly up into the boughs, so never mind that! The thing is, if I was to tell her la’ship what was in the wind she’d expect me to stop you making off with the brat. And let alone I don’t want to stop you, how the devil could I? You know what females are, Duke-no objection to my saying that, is there?-She’ll think I ought to pull out a sword, and it wouldn’t be a mite of use telling her I haven’t got a sword, because the trouble with females is they ain’t rational! And a pretty time I should have of it, while you were running off with the boy, as merry as cap and can! Why, I shouldn’t wonder at it if she didn’t forgive me for a twelvemonth!’

‘That,’ said Sylvester, ‘is your affair!’

‘Well, of all the scaly things to say!’ gasped Sir Nugent. ‘Here’s me, anxious to help you to the boy, and instead of- Oh, my God, haven’t you gone to bed yet?’

This exclamation was caused by the appearance on the threshold of Master Rayne, bearing all the look of one who, having reached a painful decision, was not to be turned from it. He was followed by Phoebe, who said: ‘Edmund wishes to speak to you before he does go to bed, Sir Nugent.’

‘No, no, take him away!’ said Sir Nugent. ‘I’ve had a very unpleasant shock-not by any means in prime twig!’

‘It isn’t wish, ezzackly,’ said Edmund, walking resolutely up to his chair, and standing before him with his hands behind his back. ‘If you please, I beg pardon for having called you a gudgeon, sir. Ridicklus gudgeon,’ he added conscientiously.

Sir Nugent waved him peevishly away. ‘Oh, very well!’

‘And also,’ said Edmund heroically, ‘it wasn’t Chien. It was me. And I’m sorry, and-and here they are!’

As he spoke he brought his hands from behind his back, and opening them disclosed two dishevelled tassels. Phoebe, unprepared for this gesture, gave a gasp of consternation; Sir Nugent, after staring for a tense moment at the tassels, said chokingly: ‘You-you-! By God, if I don’t-’

‘Fotherby!’

Sylvester’s voice, ripping across the room, checked the infuriated dandy as he started up menacingly from his chair. Sylvester came quickly forward, and Edmund, though he had stood his ground, breathed more easily. ‘You dare!’ Sylvester said through his teeth.

‘I was only going to give him a shake,’ said Sir Nugent sulkily. ‘Damn it, I’m his father-in-law, ain’t I?’

Sylvester uttered a short, contemptuous laugh, and looked down at Edmund. ‘Give me those tassels, brat, and be off to bed!’

Edmund relinquished them, but said dolefully: ‘I thought you wouldn’t be angry any more if I said I was sorry!’

‘I’m not angry,’ Sylvester said, tickling his cheek with one careless finger. ‘Word of a Rayne! Goodnight, you imp! Don’t keep Miss Marlow waiting!’

‘You’re not angry!’ exploded Sir Nugent. ‘I wonder you don’t reward the young viper!’

‘I may yet,’ replied Sylvester coolly. ‘He has done what I could not: given you your own again! When you kidnapped that boy, Fotherby, you knew yourself safe from me, because I would not publish my affairs to the world! I doubt if anything I could have done would have caused you such anguish as Edmund has made you suffer! Bless him, he’s full of pluck! How his father would have laughed!’

‘I have a good mind to call you out! Upon my soul I have!’ Sir Nugent threatened.

‘I don’t think you have!’ Sylvester tossed at him. ‘I am accounted a fair shot, my hero!’

‘I fancy,’ said Sir Nugent, fulminating, ‘that Nugent Fotherby is as game a man as ever lived! I fancy, if you were to ask anyone, that would be the answer. The thing is her la’ship wouldn’t like it. Must cherish her! But if she thinks I’m going to take that changeling of hers along with us-!’

The very thought of Edmund seemed to choke him, for he broke off, his choler mounting again, snatched up the tassels, which Sylvester had dropped disdainfully on the table, and stormed out of the room.

Tom could not but feel that Edmund’s confession had still further complicated matters; for the Poisson Rouge now seemed hardly big enough to hold both Sylvester and Sir Nugent. But Edmund’s villainy was soon found to have exercised a good effect. Ianthe, when the story was poured into her ears, said that Edmund must be punished. Sir Nugent told her bitterly that Sylvester would not allow it. So the secret of Sylvester’s arrival was out. Ianthe fell back on her pillows with a shriek; but Sir Nugent, forgetting his marriage vows, informed her (smiting her dressing table with his clenched fist so that all the gold-topped bottles on it jumped) that she might there and then choose between him and her hell-born brat. This show of violence quite overawed her. She was also a good deal impressed, for it was clearly a proof of masculine superiority, to which she instinctively responded. Her protests, though maintained tearfully, began to lack conviction; and when Sylvester, taking the law into his own hands, knocked on her door, and entered the room hard upon his knock, his reception was less daunting than might have been expected. He was certainly greeted with reproaches, but these were largely directed against his having encouraged Edmund to behave badly. As she blamed him for not having punished Edmund her subsequent declaration that nothing would induce her to abandon her child to his unkindness sounded lame even in her own ears. She then burst into tears, and said that no one had any consideration for her nerves.

This outbreak of lamentation brought Phoebe into the room, to beg her to restrain herself for Edmund’s sake. ‘I am persuaded you cannot wish to distress him!’ she said. ‘Only think how disturbing for such a little boy to hear his mama crying!’

‘You are as heartless as Sylvester!’ wept Ianthe. ‘None of you cares for my sufferings!’

‘Not I, certainly,’ said Sylvester.

‘Oh!’ gasped Ianthe, bouncing up in her bed. Indignation brought her sobs to an abrupt end; an angry flush reddened her cheeks; and her lovely eyes darted fire at Sylvester.

‘Not the snap of my fingers!’ said Sylvester. ‘You see, I am quite honest with you, Ianthe. And before you resume this affecting display of sensibility listen to what I have to say to you! It has pleased you to remember for four years a foolish thing I once said to you. You have cast it in my teeth so often that you have come to believe I meant it. No, don’t turn away your head! Look me in the face, and answer me! Do you think that I could treat with unkindness all that I have left to me of Harry?’

She said sulkily, picking at her handkerchief: ‘I am sure I never thought you cared so very much for Harry! You didn’t shed a tear when he died!’ She stopped, frightened by the expression on his face.

It was a moment before he spoke. Watching him, Phoebe saw that he was very pale, his satyr look pronounced, his lips tightly compressed. When he unclosed them it was to say in a curt voice: ‘When Harry died-I lost a part of myself. We will not discuss that. I have only this to add: you are Edmund’s mother, and you may visit him whenever you choose to do so. I have told you so many times already, but I’ll repeat it. Come to Chance when you please-with or without your husband!’

Sir Nugent, who had been listening intently, exclaimed as the door shut behind Sylvester: ‘Well, upon my soul, that’s devilish handsome of him! Now, you must own, my love, it is devilish handsome! Damme if I ever thought he’d invite me to Chance! The fact is I had a notion he didn’t like me above half. I shall go, I think. I don’t say it won’t be a dead bore: no fun and gig, and the company pretty stiff-rumped, I daresay. But visiting at Chance, you know! I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll invite him to drink a glass of wine with me! No, by Jove, I’ll invite him to dine with me! Do you think I should change my dress, my love? No! might put him out of countenance. I shall put on a fresh neck-cloth: that will exactly answer the purpose!’