It was now his turn to redden. He said: “I assure you, ma’am, you are mistaken!”

“Well, I don’t suppose that I am, for I expect you are used to be toad-eaten, on account of your high rank,” replied Drusilla frankly. “I should have explained to you that I have no very great opinion of Earls.”

Rising nobly to the occasion, he replied with scarcely a moment’s hesitation: “Yes, I think you should have explained that!”

“You see, I am the daughter of Hervey Morville,” disclosed Drusilla. She added, with all the air of one throwing in a doubler: “And of Cordelia Consett!”

The Earl could think of nothing better to say than that he was a little acquainted with a Sir James Morville, who was a member of White’s Club.

“My uncle,” acknowledged Drusilla. “He is a very worthy man, but not, of course, the equal of my Papa!”

“Of course not!” agreed Gervase.

“I daresay,” said Drusilla kindly, “that, from the circumstance of your military occupation, you have not had the leisure to read any of Papa’s works, so I should tell you that he is a Philosophical Historian. He is at the moment engaged in writing a History of the French Revolution.”

“From a Republican point-of-view, I collect?”

“Yes, certainly, which makes it sometimes a great labour, for it would be foolish to suppose that his opinions have undergone no change since he first commenced author. That,” said Drusilla, “was before I was born.”

“Oh, yes?” said Gervase politely.

“In those days, you may say that he was as ardent a disciple of Priestley as poor Mr. Coleridge, whom he knew intimately when a very young man. In fact, Papa was a Pantisocrat.”

“A — ?”

She obligingly repeated it. “They were a society of whom the most prominent members were Mr. Coleridge, and Mr. Southey, and my Papa. They formed the intention of emigrating to the banks of the Susquehanna, but, fortunately, neither Mrs. Southey nor Mama considered the scheme practicable, so it was abandoned. I daresay you may have noticed that persons of large intellect have not the least common-sense. In this instance, it was intended that there should be no servants, but everyone should devote himself — or herself, as the case might be — for two hours each day to the performance of the necessary domestic duties, after which the rest of the day was to have been occupied in literary pursuits. But, of course, Mama and Mrs. Southey readily perceived that although the gentlemen might adhere to the two-hour-rule, it would be quite impossible for the ladies to do so. In fact, Mama was of the opinion that although the gentlemen might be induced, if strongly adjured, to draw water, and to chop the necessary wood, they would certainly have done no more. And no one,” continued Miss Morville, with considerable acumen, “could have placed the least reliance on their continued performance of such household tasks, for, you know, if they had been engaged in philosophical discussion they would have forgotten all about them.”

“I conclude,” said Gervase, a good deal amused, “that your Mama is of a practical disposition?”

“Oh, no!” replied Miss Morville serenely. “That is why she did not wish to form one of the colony. She has no turn for domestic duties:, Mama is an Authoress. She has written several novels, and numerous articles and treatises. She was used to be a friend of Mrs. Godwin’s — the first Mrs. Godwin, I should explain — and she holds views, which are thought to be very advanced, on Female Education.”

“And have you been reared according to these views?” enquired Gervase, in some misgiving.

“No, for Mama has been so fully occupied in prescribing for the education of females in general that naturally she has had little time to spare for her own children. Moreover, she is a person of excellent sense, and, mortifying though it has been to her, she has not hesitated to acknowledge that neither I nor my elder brother is in the least bookish.”

“A blow!” commented the Earl.

“Yes, but she has sustained it with fortitude, and we have great hopes that my younger brother, who is now at Cambridge, will become distinguished. And, after all, there must be someone in a household who does not dislike domestic management.”

“Is that your fate, Miss Morville?” the Earl asked, rather touched. “Is your life spent in these rural fastnesses, performing a housekeeper’s duties? I pity you!”

“Well, you need not,” returned Miss Morville unromantically. “We are only to be found in Lincolnshire when Papa requires quiet for the performance of his labours. In general, we reside in London, so that Mama may enjoy the benefits of literary society.”

“Forgive me, ma’am, if I say that it sounds to me like a dead bore!”

“Oh, yes, to those who are not bookish, it is!” agreed Miss Morville. “When in London, I spend much of my time in the company of my aunt, Lady Morville, and my cousins. Parties, and theatres, you know, for they are always very gay, and most good-natured in including me in their schemes. My aunt even undertook my Presentation last year, which, when you consider that she had three daughters of her own to bring out, you must allow was very handsome in her. Particularly when Mama had declared herself ready to sink her scruples, and to perform the duty herself. Neither Mama nor Papa approves of Royalty, of course. But neither, I assure you, is an advocate of the more violent forms of Jacobinism.”

“I am relieved. They would not, you think, wish to see such heads as mine fall under the knife of the guillotine?”

“I shouldn’t think they would wish to see any head do so.”

While they had been talking, they had mounted the Grand Stairway, crossed the hall at the head of it, and now entered the Long Drawing-room. The Earl enquired: “Where are you taking me, Miss Morville?”

“To the Small Dining-room, if you please. I wish you to inform me whether you approve of what I have done with the epergne, or whether you would prefer some other arrangement.”

“What you have done with it? Pray, why should you be called upon to do anything with it?”

“Well, I was not precisely called upon, but someone had to decide what was to be done, when all you would say was that it should be stowed away in a dark cupboard!” she pointed out. “Poor Abney was quite bewildered, you know, for he could not suppose that you meant it; and as for Lady St. Erth, she says that after what has passed nothing will prevail upon her to raise her voice in the matter.”

“I am delighted to hear it. A dark cupboard seems to be the only place for such a hideous object. Do not tell me that you admire it!”

“No, not at all, but I don’t consider myself a judge, and what I might think ugly other people, perhaps, would consider a very handsome piece.”

“Let me make it plain to you, Miss Morville, that I will not sit down to dinner with that thing in the middle of the table!”

“You could not, for now that the table has been reduced, which, I must say, was a very good notion, there is no room on it for the epergne. But now and again, I daresay, you will wish the table enlarged to accommodate more persons, and the epergne can be set upon it for the occasion. It is certainly very disagreeable to be obliged to crane one’s neck to see round it, when one dines informally, and it may be thought allowable to converse with persons seated on the opposite side of the table; but on more state occasions that would be a sadly ill-bred thing to do, and the epergne need be an annoyance to no one.”

“I hesitate to contradict you, ma’am, but it must always be an annoyance to me,” said Gervase.

“Not,” said Miss Morville, “if it were turned so that you were not confronted by a snarling tiger. When Abney brought me here this morning, to consider what was to be done, I instantly perceived that you had been obliged, throughout the meal, to look at this creature; and, naturally, I realized that the spectacle of a ferocious beast, in the act of springing upon its prey, could not be thought conducive to conviviality, and might, indeed, be offensive to a person of sensibility. But on the reverse side,” pursued Miss Morville, preceding the Earl into the Small Dining-room, “there are a group of natives gathered beneath a palm tree, two peacocks and an elephant, with trunk upraised. Quite unexceptionable, I think!” She halted inside the Dining-room, and indicated a Buhl table, placed in the window embrasure. “You see, I desired Abney to have that table from the Crimson Saloon carried into the room, and have caused the epergne to be set upon it; but if you do not like it, it can be moved.”

“A dark cupboard!” said the Earl obstinately.

“Recollect that you will be seated with your back turned to it!” begged Miss Morville.

“I should suppose the tiger to be leaping upon me.”

“Oh, no, indeed you could not, for it is facing the window!”

“Unanswerable! Pray, why are you so anxious to preserve the epergne, ma’am?”

“Well, I think Lady St. Erth might be a little mollified, if it were still in the room; and it would be quite improper, you know, to consign all your heirlooms, which you do not like, to dark cupboards,” said Miss Morville reasonably. “I daresay there are several changes you will wish to make at Stanyon, but it is a favourite saying of my brother Jack’s — my military brother — that one should always try to get over heavy ground as light as one can.”

He smiled. “Very true! In what regiment is your military brother?”

“A line regiment: I daresay you would not know,” said Miss Morville. “You, I collect, were in the 7th Hussars — one of the crack cavalry regiments!”