She lifted her chin. “I should not under any circumstances spend the entire evening in any gentleman’s pocket!”

“No, I believe you would not,” he agreed mildly. “Not in my line, Cilly! Besides, I am engaged with a party of my own.”

His employment of her almost forgotten nursery name made her retort with much less constraint: “Daffy Club!”

He grinned. “No. Cribb’s Parlour!”

“How horrid you are! I suppose you are going to discuss the merits of a Bloomsbury Pet, or a Black Diamond, or — or — ”

“A Mayfair Marvel,” he supplied. “Nothing so interesting. I am going to blow a cloud with a few friends. And what do you know of Bloomsbury Pets, miss?”

She threw him a saucy look as she passed him on the way down the staircase. “Only what I have learnt from my brothers, Charles!”

He laughed, and let her go, but before she had reached the bottom of the flight, leaned over the banisters, and said imperatively, “Cecilia!” She looked up enquiringly. “Does that fellow Wraxton annoy you?”

She was nearly betrayed into losing her gravity. She replied, “Oh, well! I daresay I could snub him easily enough, if — well, if I chose to do so!”

“You need not be deterred by any consideration that I know of. I need scarcely say that if Eugenia knew of it she would be the first to condemn his behavior!”

“Of course,” she said.

Whether he spoke words of censure to Miss Wraxton no one was in a position to know. If he did, they must, Sophy thought, have been mild ones, for she did not appear to be in any way chastened. However, Sophy was granted one satisfaction. When next Miss Wraxton brought up the vexed question of Jacko, confiding to Lady Ombersley that she lived in dread of hearing that the monkey had bitten one of the children, Charles overheard her, and said impatiently, “Nonsense!”

“I believe a monkey’s bite is poisonous.”

“In that case I hope he may bite Theodore.” Lady Ombersley uttered a protest, but Theodore, already soundly cuffed for hitting a cricket ball from the Square garden straight through one of the windows of a neighboring house, merely grinned. Miss Wraxton, who did not feel that he had been adequately punished for such a piece of lawlessness, had already spoken her mind gravely on the subject. Charles had listened, but all he had said was, “Very true, but it was a capital hit. I saw it.” This disregard for her opinion rankled with Miss Wraxton, and she now, with the archness which she too often employed when talking to children, read Theodore a playful lecture, telling him that he was fortunate in not being obliged to forfeit his new pet in retribution of his crime. Beyond casting her a glance of resentment, he paid no heed, but Gertrude blurted out, “I believe you don’t like Jacko because Sophy gave him to us!”

The truth of this embarrassingly forthright pronouncement struck most of those present with blinding effect. Miss Wraxton’s cheeks flew two spots of color; Lady Ombersley gave a gasp, and Cecilia a stifled giggle. Only Charles and Sophy remained unmoved, Sophy not raising her eyes from the sewing she was engaged on, and Charles saying blightingly, “A stupid and an impertinent remark, Gertrude. You may return to the schoolroom, if you cannot conduct yourself more becomingly.”

Gertrude, who had arrived at the age when she cast herself into quite as much confusion as her elders, had already blushed hotly, and now fled in disorder from the room. Lady Ombersley began at once to talk of her projected expedition, with Sophy and Cecilia, to visit the Marquesa de Villacanas at Merton.

“One would not wish to be backward in any attention,” she said, “so I shall make the effort, and we must hope it will not rain, for that would make it very disagreeable. I wish you will go with us, Charles. Your uncle’s affianced wife, you know! I own, I do not care to drive out of town without a gentleman to go with me, though I am sure Radnor is perfectly to be trusted, and I should of course take my footmen.”

“My dear Mama, three able-bodied men should be enough to protect you on this hazardous journey!” he returned, in some amusement.

“Don’t tease Charles to go, Aunt Lizzie!” said Sophy, snipping off her thread. “Sir Vincent vows he will ride there with us, for he has not met Sancia since Madrid days, when her husband was still alive, and they gave splendid parties for all the English officers.”

There was a slight pause before Charles said, “If you wish it, Mama, I will certainly go with you. I can take my cousin in the curricle, and then you will not be crowded in your carriage.”

“Oh, I mean to go in my phaeton!” Sophy said unconcernedly.

“I thought it was your ambition to drive my grays?”

“Why, would you let me?”

“Perhaps.”

She laughed. “Oh, no, no! I have no belief in perhaps. Take Cecilia!”

“Cecilia would by far rather go in my mother’s landaulet. You may take the reins for part of the way.”

She said in a rallying tone, “This is something indeed! I am overcome, Charles, and fear you cannot be feeling quite the thing!”

“It will be a delightful expedition,” said Miss Wraxton brightly. “I am almost tempted, dear Lady Ombersley, to beg a place in your carriage!”

Lady Ombersley was too well bred to betray consternation, but she said a little doubtfully, “Well, my dear, of course — if Sophy does not think that there might be rather too many of us for the Marquesa! I should not wish to put her out in any way.”

“Not at all!” Sophy replied instantly. “It is not in your power to put Sancia out, dearest Aunt Lizzie! She will not bestir herself in the least, but will leave everything to her major-domo. Her is a Frenchman, and will be delighted to make arrangements for even so small a party as ours. I have only to write Sancia a letter, beg a frank from my uncle, and the thing is done — if only she will rouse herself sufficiently to convey my message to Gaston.

“How interesting it will be to meet a real Spanish lady!” remarked Miss Wraxton.

“For all the world as if Sancia had been a giraffe!” as Sophy afterward said to Cecilia.

“I wish I had known you meant to accompany my mother!” Mr. Rivenhall said, when he presently escorted Miss Wraxton to her carriage. “I should have offered you a place in my curricle. I cannot cry off now, but it is a bore. I should not have said I would go had I not heard that Talgarth was to be of the party. God knows I don’t care a jot whom my cousin marries, but I suppose, in the circumstances, we owe it to my uncle not to encourage that connection!”

“I am afraid her visit has brought extra cares upon you, my dear Charles. Much must be forgiven to a girl who has never known a mother’s care, but I confess I had hoped that under your mama’s guidance she would have tried to conform to English standards of propriety.”

“Not she!” he said. “It’s my belief she delights in keeping us all upon tenterhooks! There is no guessing what she will be at next, while the terms she stands on with every rattle who ever wore a scarlet coat — not that I care for that! But to be encouraging Talgarth to dangle after her is the outside of enough. All very well to say she can look after herself. I daresay she can, but if she is seen too much in his company, she will be talked about by every scandalmongering busybody in town!”

Miss Wraxton, treasuring up these hasty words, was unwise enough to repeat the gist of them to Sophy not forty-eight hours later. During the hour of the fashionable Promenade, when walking in the Park with her maid, she came upon Sophy’s phaeton, drawn up to allow Sophy to exchange a few words with the reprehensible Sir Vincent. He had one hand negligently on the step of the phaeton, and she was leaning a little down to say something that seemed to afford them both amusement. She saw Miss Wraxton, and nodded smilingly to her, but looked rather surprised when Eugenia came toward the phaeton, and addressed her.

“How do you do? So this is the carriage I hear so much of! At all events, you have a fine pair of horses, I see. You drive them tandem! You are to be congratulated. I do not think I would trust myself to do so.”

“You are acquainted with Sir Vincent Talgarth, I believe,” Sophy said.

Sir Vincent received the coldest of bows and the merest hint of a smile.

“Do you know,” said Miss Wraxton, looking up at Sophy, “I really think I must ask you to take me up beside you for one turn! I am quite jealous of your prowess, I assure you!”

Sophy signed to John to alight, saying politely, “Pray come with me, Miss Wraxton. I shall naturally be put on my mettle. Sir Vincent, we meet on Friday, then. You will call for us in Berkeley Square!”

Miss Wraxton, assisted by John Potton, mounted with credible grace into the awkwardly high carriage and sat down beside Sophy, disposing her skirt neatly, and acknowledging Tina’s presence by uttering, “Dear little doggie!” a form of address which made the little greyhound shiver and press closer to her mistress. “I am so happy to have this opportunity of speaking with you, Miss Stanton-Lacy. I had come to think it impossible to find you when you should be alone! You are acquainted with so many people.”

“Yes, am I not fortunate?”

“Indeed, yes!” agreed Miss Wraxton, honey sweet. “Though sometimes, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, when one has a multitude of friends, one is inclined not to be as careful as one should be, perhaps. I wonder if I might venture to put you a little on your guard? In Paris and Vienna I am sure you would be able to tell me how I should go on, but in London I must be more at home than you.”

“Oh, I should never be so impertinent as to tell you how to go on anywhere!” Sophy declared.