Sophy, who had never connected Mr. Fawnhope with any manly attribute, was quite surprised to discover that he had ridden out to visit the Marquesa on a pure-bred mare she would not herself have disdained to possess. He rode back to London behind her phaeton, and handled the pretty, playful creature well, she noticed. She confided to Lord Charlbury that she thought it would be to his advantage if Cecilia were never to see her poet upon a horse.

He sighed. “Do not think, dear Sophy, that I have not a great deal of pleasure in your society, but where is all this leading me? Do you know, for I do not!”

“I depend upon its leading you just where you would wish to be,” she replied seriously. “Pray trust me! Cecilia by no means likes to see you dancing attendance on me, I can assure you!”

Cecilia was not the only one to derive no pleasure from this spectacle. Mr. Rivenhall, possibly because he still cherished hopes that a match might be made up between Charlbury and his sister, regarded it with the greatest dislike; and Lord Bromford, finding himself quite cut out, developed such a degree of hostility toward his rival as made it almost impossible for him to meet him with even the appearance of complaisance.

“It seems to me a very extraordinary circumstance,” he told his chief sympathizer, “that a man who has been dangling after one female — as the common phrase runs — for more weeks than I care to enumerate should be so fickle as to transfer his attentions to another in so short a time! I confess, I have no comprehension of such conduct. Had I, dear Miss Wraxton, not been about the world a little, and learnt something of the frailty of mankind, I must have been totally at a loss! But I do not scruple to tell you that I never liked Charlbury above half. His conduct does not astonish me. I am only grieved, and, I may add,/surprised, to see Miss Stanton-Lacy so taken in!”

“No doubt,” said Miss Wraxton pleasantly, “a lady who has been used to live upon the Continent must be expected to regard these matters in rather a different light from that in which such poor stay-at-homes as myself must look upon them. I believe that flirting is quite a pastime amongst foreign ladies.”

“My dear ma’am,” said his lordship, “I must tell you that I am by no means an advocate of travel for ladies. It does not seem to me to be a necessary thing for the education of the weaker sex, although for a man I think it to be indispensable. I should not be astonished to learn that Charlbury had never set foot outside this island, which is a circumstance that makes me wonder more than ever at Miss Stanton-Lacy’s partiality for his society.”

Lord Bromford’s hostility was perfectly well known to its object. Charlbury, cantering along the Row with Sophy, said to her once, “If I come out of this masquerade with a whole skin I may think myself fortunate! Are you deter I shall be slain, Sophy, you wretch?”

She laughed. “Bromford?”

“He or Charles. Of the two, I hope it may be he who calls me out. I daresay he cannot hit a haystack at twelve yards, but Rivenhall I know to be a capital shot.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Do you think so indeed? Charles?”

He returned her look, his own eyes quizzing her. “Yes, Madam Innocence! Doubtless because of the slight upon his sister! Tell me — you are always frank — do you make a practice of setting everyone to partners wherever you go?”

“No,” she replied. “Not unless I am persuaded it would be better for them!”

He laughed and laughed, and was still laughing when they encountered Mr. and Miss Rivenhall, riding side by side toward them.

Sophy greeted her cousins with unaffected pleasure, altogether refraining from expressing her surprise at seeing Cecilia indulging in a form of exercise she was not much addicted to. She and Charlbury turned their horses to ride with the Rivenhalls, and she made no objection when, after a little way, Mr. Rivenhall obliged her to fall behind the . other two, and proceed at a sedate pace down the track. She said, “I like that bay of yours, Charles.”

“You may like him,” returned Mr. Rivenhall disagreeably, “but you are not going to ride him!”

She cast him a sidelong look, brimful of mischief. “No, dear Charles?”

“Sophy,” said Mr. Rivenhall, descending rapidly from the autocratic to the merely threatening, “if you dare to have your saddle put upon my Thunderer, I will strangle you, and throw your body into the Serpentine!”

She gave the gurgle of laughter that never failed to bring’ his twisted grin into being. “Oh, no, Charles, would you indeed? Well, I do not blame you! If ever I find you astride Salamanca, I shall certainly shoot you — and I can make allowance for a gun that throws a little left!”

“Yes?” said Mr. Rivenhall. “Well, my dear cousin, when we go down to Ombersley, I shall derive much satisfaction from watching your marksmanship! You shall show me what you can do with my dueling pistols. They do not throw left, or even right. I am rather nice in the choice of my weapons!”

“Dueling pistols!” said Sophy, much impressed. “I had not thought it of you, Charles! How many times have you been out? Do you always kill your man?”

“Rarely!” he retorted. “Dueling has gone sadly out of fashion, dear Sophy! I am so sorry to be obliged to disappoint you!”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I had no real expectation of hearing that you had done anything so dashing!”

That made him laugh. He flung up a hand, in the gesture of a swordsman acknowledging a hit. “Very well, Sophy! Touché!”

“Do you fence?”

“Indifferently. Why?”

“Oh, merely that it is something I have never learnt!”

“Good God, how is this? I had thought Sir Horace must have taught you how to handle a small sword!”

“No,” said Sophy, making her mouth prim. “And he has not taught me how to box either, so there are two things, Charles, which you must be able to do better than I can!”

“You quite outstrip me,” he agreed suavely. “Particularly in the art of dalliance!”

She instantly disconcerted him by making an attack direct. “Dalliance, Charles? You do not, I hope, accuse me of flirting?”

“Do I not?” he said grimly. “Enlighten me, I beg, on the nature of your dealings with Charlbury!”

She showed him an innocent face. “But, Charles, how is this? Surely I could not be mistaken! All is at an end between him and Cecilia! You cannot suppose it possible that I would encourage his advances if that were not so!”

The bay horse broke into a canter and was checked. Mr. Rivenhall said furiously, “Foolery! Don’t try to humbug me, Sophy! Charlbury and you! Why, what a gull you must think me!”

“Oh, no!” Sophy assured him soulfully. “But there is nothing I would not do to oblige Sir Horace, and I would far rather marry Charlbury than Bromford!”

“It sometimes seems to me,” said Mr. Rivenhall, “that delicacy is a virtue utterly unknown to you!”

“Yes, tell me about it!” she said, with immense cordiality.

He did not avail himself of this invitation, but said in a biting tone, “I should warn you, perhaps, that Charlbury’s determined pursuit is fast making you the talk of the town.

Whether you care a button for that I know not, but since my mother is responsible for you I must own that I should be grateful to you if you would behave with a little more discretion!”

“You told me once before of something else I could do if ever I should wish to please you,” remarked Sophy thoughtfully. “I must say, I hope I never shall wish to, for, try as I may, I cannot recall what it was!”

“You have been determined, have you not, to make me dislike you from the very day we met?” he shot at her.

“Not at all. You did so without the least encouragement!”

He rode beside her in silence for some moments, saying at last, in a stiff voice, “You are mistaken. I do not dislike you. That is to say, there have been many times when I have liked you very well. Nor need you imagine that I forget how much I stand in your debt.”

She interrupted him. “You do not! Let me hear no more of that, if you please! Tell me about Hubert! I heard you tell my aunt that you had received a letter from him. Is he well?”

“Perfectly, I imagine. He only wrote to desire me to send him a book he had left behind.” He grinned suddenly. “And to tell me of his determination to attend all his lectures! If I did not think that that resolution must fail, I would post up to Oxford immediately! Such virtue could only end in his seeking relief in the most shocking excesses. Let me say one thing to you, Sophy! I have never said it. We were interrupted before I could do so, and I have never found the opportunity since! I must always be grateful to you for showing me, as you did, how much at fault I had been in my dealings with Hubert.”

“That is nonsense, but I could show you, if you would permit me, how much at fault you are in your dealings with Cecilia!” she said.

His face hardened. “Thank you! On that subject we are not likely to agree!”

She said no more, but allowed Salamanca to break into a canter and to overtake Lord Charlbury and Cecilia.

She found them conversing comfortably, the constraint Cecilia had felt upon finding herself obliged to ride alone in his company having been speedily banished by the friendly ease of his manners. Neither by word nor by look did he remind her of what lay between them but began to talk to her at once on some unexceptionable subject that he knew would interest her. This made a pleasant change for her, Mr. Fawnhope’s conversation being, at present, almost wholly confined to the scope and structure of his great tragedy.