"Are you enjoying the Season, Miss Harwood?" he enquired, when he met her at the refreshment table at Mrs. Esmond's ball.

"Very much, thank you," she replied. "And you?"

"I usually manage to enjoy myself," he said. When this was analyzed for the ninth or tenth time, Laura found it to be egotistical. He 'managed' not to be bored, when he was the center of attention everywhere. How very obliging of him.

It was at the play at Covent Garden that the final blow fell on Laura's ill-fated romance. Lady Meaford, who had remained a friend since the weekend at Castlefield, stopped at their box during the first intermission.

"Have you heard the latest on-dit? This might interest you, Miss Harwood, since you are a friend of Hyatt."

Laura's heart hammered mercilessly. She was going to hear that he was engaged-that he had offered for Lady Debora. She willed herself to show no more than polite curiosity. "What is that, Lady Meaford?"

"I hear Lady Devereau got her portrait from Hyatt after all," she said. "She has removed it from Somerset House. I wager that is why she stormed into the duchess's rout that night. She will never take no for an answer, that one. I wonder how she convinced him to give it up." Her knowing little smile suggested what means Marie Devereau would naturally employ, and what would convince Hyatt.

Laura gave a cynical little laugh, while her heart broke to splinters within her. So that was Lady Devereau's reward for Hyatt's nocturnal visit in his stocking feet. For some foolish reason, the stocking feet bothered her as much as the rest. It lent a touch of slyness, of familiarity with the ways of adultery, to the liaison.

Wrapped up in her unhappy thoughts, Laura did not notice that John Yarrow was at the theater. Everyone else in the house knew it, for he and his friends made a great clamor. They laughed loudly through the dramatic scenes and hooted during the comic ones. In Yarrow's box, wine was passed with reckless abandon, not only during the intermission, but during the whole performance. Olivia spotted him the instant he arrived, of course. Soon she trained her glasses on him and was in alt when she saw him return the compliment. There was much staring at each other through the glasses for the next hour.

Yarrow did not feel his presence in Mrs. Traemore's box would do his cause any good, so at intermission he sent a message with Angela Carstairs, asking where Olivia was going after the theater.

"Home, for I fear I shall have a megrim," Olivia said, with a broad smile.

"Oh, no. We are all going to Peckford's rout party first. The food is horrid at the Pantheon, and very dear. We shall leave from Peckford's."

"John said I should have a headache and go home."

"Have a headache, and I'll take you home," Angela suggested.

"Mrs. Harwood and Laura would insist on taking me home."

"Then don't tell them. Leave a message with some other friend."

Mr. Meadows, occupying the fifth seat in the box, cupped his ear, but could not hear over the others' chatter.

When Olivia noticed, she smiled to disarm his suspicions. Could she trust him not to go darting off to Laura with the news that she had left? "I'll manage it somehow," she promised Angela. "Don't leave Peckford's without me."

"Foolish girl! You are all John has talked about all night. I swear he can't open his mouth without singing your praises. Miss Hanson would be very jealous if she could hear him."

"Who is Miss Hanson?" Olivia demanded.

"Why, she is the neighbor of the fellow he was visiting all week. A regular Incomparable. But you need not fear. Her papa sent John packing for some reason or other. They are so poky in the country there is no standing it. I must dash."

Olivia was thrown into conniptions of jealousy. She must get away somehow tonight, or she would lose John forever. Yet it seemed an impossibility. Between Laura, Mrs. Harwood, and Mr. Meadows (for Aunt Hettie would go home immediately after the play), they would watch her like a hawk. Her eyes slid to John's box, where she could see she was missing out on a delightful evening. John was making paper balls from his program and shooting them down into the pit. There, he had hit that bald man right on the head. How they all laughed. She longed with every fiber of her being to be with youngsters who knew how to enjoy themselves, instead of stuck here with this dull lot.

She could hardly force a smile when Mr. Meadows drew a box of her favorite bonbons from his pocket and passed them to her. She didn't even thank him, but just accepted them and popped half a dozen into her mouth, one after the other, while she gazed at John through her glasses.

Chapter Eighteen

It seemed to the baroness that the play that evening lasted twenty hours. She couldn't think, with the racket of laughter all around her and the actors on stage ranting at each other. The audience clapped at every appearance of a certain stout female with feathers in her hair.

At long last there was a wild burst of applause and the curtain fell. After a series of curtain calls, with the fat actress who had played the main role taking a dozen bows, the audience began making those stirring motions involved with rescuing shawls and reticules. It was over, thank God!

And still Olivia had formed no plan of escape. But she meant to attend the Pantheon that night, if she had to walk over the dead bodies of her aunt, of Mrs. Harwood, cousin Laura, and Mr. Meadows to do it. She would go if she had to fight her way out of Peckford's with guns blazing.

Around her the audience was loud in its praise of the performance. Mr. Meadows came forward to place her shawl about her shoulders. "That was quite an experience, was it not?" he smiled. "It will be something to tell your children one day, Baroness."

"Whatever do you mean?" she asked, wondering if she had missed some excitement on stage while watching John. Had an actor expired, or been pelted off the stage?

"Why, I wager this will be the great Mrs. Jordan's last role. I would not have missed it for a wilderness of monkeys. She is getting on to be playing Lady Teazle, of course, but there is some magic in the woman. I think she must be part sorceress."

"Was that Mrs. Jordan?" Olivia demanded. She felt cheated. She had been hearing of this legend for years.

Now that she had "seen" her, she could not even say what the play had been. "She is awfully fat," she said crossly.

"Aye, but she is tall and carries the weight well." He smiled benignly and turned to assist the other ladies, and eventually they left their box.

There was an interminable delay as they waited for their carriage to fight its way through the melee outside the theater, and a further delay while Hettie was dropped off at Charles Street. With Mr. Meadows to protect the ladies, Mrs. Harwood decided to skip the rout, and went home with Hettie. After a prolonged series of farewells, the carriage was finally on its way to Peckford's.

Laura enjoyed the evening as much as a lady with a broken heart could. Mentally she appreciated that she was viewing Mrs. Jordan's final role, but emotionally she was miles away. Once she had ascertained that Lord Hyatt was not at the theater, her mind began darting about London in search of him. Her first act at any outing was always to examine the room for a sight of him. She did so again when they reached Peckford's. Whatever part of the room he occupied, she made a point of heading to the part farthest from him. A cursory look failed to spot his blond head in the ballroom.

Almost unconsciously she had adopted the habit of running through the various entertainments offered each night, trying to figure out where Hyatt might be. She had expected he would attend Mrs. Jordan's opening at Covent Garden. When he was not there, she pondered alternatives. Lady Montagu's ball was the other notable party that evening. Olivia had declined the invitation to that grand but dull affair. Laura had thought Hyatt would make an early appearance there, then go to Peckford's smaller but livelier do, where all the young ton would meet. Perhaps he would arrive any moment.

Meanwhile, she must look about for a partner, as Mr. Meadows would want to stand up first with the baroness. Lord Talman still had some hope of winning the baroness's fortune for one of his brothers, and came forward to ask Olivia for a dance. The baroness accepted, feeling that Talman would be easier to get away from than Mr. Meadows. Her attention was on the doorway, for John had not arrived yet. Meadows, disappointed, stood up with Laura.

Halfway through the set, Yarrow and his crew made a noisy appearance. Laura was unhappy to see them, but Olivia had not mentioned Yarrow since the affair at Castlefield. Unacquainted with Yarrow's itinerary, Laura assumed he had been in town all week, and as he had not been pestering the baroness, she thought he had found some new lady to harass. Mr. Meadows made but an indifferent partner. He feared the baroness had a tendre for Talman after all, as she had accepted his escort so eagerly.

During Laura's dance with Meadows, Lord Hyatt appeared at the doorway with a group of bachelors. He was never difficult to spot. A current of excitement always buzzed through the room at his entrance. Heads turned, necks craned, and eyes squinted for a glimpse of him.

"There is Hyatt, just come in," Meadows mentioned gloomily. "I daresay the baroness will give him the next dance. I shall try for the one after that."

"Try for the one after this, Mr. Meadows," she replied. "I doubt Hyatt will ask Olivia for a dance." Or Miss Harwood either, she added to herself.

At the end of the music, one of the other gentlemen from their set asked Laura for the next dance, and she accepted gladly. She did not want Hyatt to see her unpartnered. She gave scarcely a thought to Olivia. When Meadows was with them, he made himself responsible for her welfare, so Laura could take a break from this onerous chore.