“Well,” said the Beau softly, “I do not want to appear unfeeling, but if Ludovic has lost his head, it would be of some slight interest to me to hear of it.”

“Naturally. Your position is most uncertain.”

“Oh, I am not repining,” smiled the Beau. “But I still think you ought—as trustee—to find Ludovic.”

During the next few days, however, Sir Tristram had enough to occupy him without adding a search for the heir to his duties. Upon the arrival of the lawyer, Sylvester’s will was read, a document complicated enough to try the temper of a more patient man than Shield. A thousand and one things had to be done, and in addition to the duties attendant upon the death of Sylvester there was the problem of Eustacie to worry her betrothed.

She accepted both her bereavement and the postponement of her wedding day with perfect fortitude, but when Sir Tristram asked her to name some lady living in the neighbourhood in whose charge she could for the present remain, she declared herself quite unable to do so. She had no acquaintance in Sussex, Sylvester having quarrelled with one half of the county and ignored the other half. “Besides,” she said, “I do not wish to be put in charge of a chaperon. I shall stay here.”

Sir Tristram, feeling that Sylvester had in his time created enough scandal in Sussex, was strongly averse from giving the gossips anything further to wag their tongues over. Betrothed or not, his and Eustacie’s sojourn under the same roof was an irregularity which every virtuous dame who thought the Lavenhams a godless family would be swift to pounce upon. He said: “Well, it is confoundedly awkward, but I don’t see what I can do about it. I suppose I shall have to let you stay.”

“I shall stay because I wish to,” said Eustacie, bristling. “I do not have to do what you say yet!”

“Don’t be silly!” said Sir Tristram, harassed, and therefore irritable.

“I am not silly. It is you who have a habit which I find much more silly of telling me what I must do and what I must not do. I am quite tired of being bien elevèe, and I think I will now arrange my own affairs.”

“You are a great deal too young to manage your own affairs, I am afraid.”

“That we shall see.”

“We shall, indeed. Have you thought to order your mourning clothes? That must be done, you know.”

“I do not know it,” said Eustacie. “Grandpère said I was not to mourn for him, and I shall not.”

“That may be, but this is a censorious world, my child, and it will be thought very odd if you don’t accord Sylvester’s memory that mark of respect.”

“Well, I shan’t,” said Eustacie simply.

Sir Tristram looked her over in frowning silence.

“You look very cross,” said Eustacie.

“I am not cross,” said Sir Tristram in a somewhat brittle voice, “but I think you should know that while I am prepared to allow you all the freedom possible, I shall expect my wife to pay some slight heed to my wishes.”

Eustacie considered this dispassionately. “Well, I do not think I shall,” she said. “You seem to me to have very stupid wishes—quite absurd, in fact.”

“This argument is singularly pointless,” said Sir Tristram, quelling a strong desire to box her ears. “Perhaps my mother will know better how to persuade you.”

Eustacie pricked up her ears at that. “I did not know you had a mother! Where is she?”

“She is in Bath. When the funeral is over I am going to take you to her, and put you in her care until we can be married.”

“As to that, it is not yet decided. Describe to me your mother! Is she like you?”

“No, not at all.”

“Tant mieux! What, then, is she like?”

“Well,” said Sir Tristram lamely, “I don’t think I know how to describe her. She will be very kind to you, I know.”

“But what does she do?” demanded Eustacie. “Does she amuse herself at Bath? Is she gay?”

“Hardly. She does not enjoy good health, you see.”

“Oh!” Eustacie digested this. “No parties?”

“I believe she enjoys card parties.”

Eustacie grimaced expressively. “Me, I know those card parties. I think she plays Whist, and perhaps Commerce.”

“I dare say she does. I know of no reason why she should not,” said Shield rather stiffly.

“There is not any reason, but I do not play Whist or Commerce, and I find such parties quite abominable.”

“That need not concern you, for whatever Sylvester’s views may have been, I feel sure that my mother will agree that it would be improper for you to go out in public immediately after his death.”

“But if I am not to go to any parties, what then am I to do in Bath?”

“Well, I suppose you will have to reconcile yourself to a period of quiet.”

“Quiet?” gasped Eustacie. “More quiet? No, and no, and no!”

He could not help laughing, but said: “Is it so terrible?”

“Yes, it is!” said Eustacie. “First I have to live in Sussex, and now I am to go to Bath—to play backgammon! And after that you will take me to Berkshire, where I expect I shall die.”

“I hope not!” said Shield.

“Yes, but I think I shall,” said Eustacie, propping her chin in her hands and gazing mournfully into the fire. “After all, I have had a very unhappy life without any adventures, and it would not be wonderful if I went into a decline. Only nothing that is interesting ever happens to me,” she added bitterly, “so I dare say I shall just die in childbed, which is a thing anyone can do.”

Sir Tristram flushed uncomfortably. “Really, Eustacie!” he protested.

Eustacie was too much absorbed in the contemplation of her dark destiny to pay any heed to him. “I shall present to you an heir,” she said, “and then I shall die.” The picture suddenly appealed to her; she continued in a more cheerful tone: “Everyone will say that I was very young to die, and they will fetch you from the gaming hell where you—”

“Fetch me from where?” interrupted Sir Tristram, momentarily led away by this flight of imagination.

“From a gaming hell,” repeated Eustacie impatiently. “Or perhaps the Cock Pit. It does not signify; it is quite unimportant! But I think you will feel great remorse when it is told to you that I am dying, and you will spring up and fling yourself on your horse, and ride ventre a terre to come to my deathbed. And then I shall forgive you, and—”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” demanded Sir Tristram. “Why should you forgive me? Why should—What is this nonsense?”

Eustacie, thus rudely awakened from her pleasant dream, sighed and abandoned it. “It is just what I thought might happen,” she explained.

Sir Tristram said severely: “ It seems to me that you indulge your fancy a deal too freely. Let me assure you that I don’t frequent gaming hells or cockpits! Nor,” he added, with a flicker of humour, “am I very much in the habit of flinging myself upon my horses.”

“No, and you do not ride ventre a terre. It does not need that you should tell me so. I know!”

“Well, only on the hunting-field,” said Sir Tristram.

“Do you think you might if I were on my deathbed?” asked Eustacie hopefully.

“Certainly not. If you were on your deathbed it is hardly likely that I should be from home. I wish you would put this notion of dying out of your head. Why should you die?”

“But I have told you!” said Eustacie, brightening at this sign of interest. “I shall—”

“Yes, I know,” said Sir Tristram hastily. “You need not tell me again. There will be time enough to discuss such matters when we are married.”

“But I thought it was because you must have an heir that you want to marry me?” said Eustacie practically. “Grandpère explained it to me, and you yourself said—”

“Eustacie,” interposed Sir Tristram, “if you must talk in this extremely frank vein, I’ll listen, but I do beg of you not to say such things to anyone but me! It will give people a very odd idea of you.”

“Grandpère,” said Eustacie, with the air of one quoting a major prophet, “told me not to mind what I said, but on no account to be a simpering little innocente.”

“It sounds to me exactly the kind of advice Sylvester would give you,” said Shield.

“And you sound to me exactly the kind of person I do not at all wish to have for my husband!” retorted Eustacie. “It will be better, I think, if we do not marry!”

“Possibly!” said Sir Tristram, nettled. “But I gave my word to Sylvester that I would marry you, and marry you I will!”

“You will not, because I shall instantly run away!”

“Don’t be a little fool!” said Sir Tristram unwisely, and walked out of the room, leaving her simmering with indignation.

Her wrath did not last long, for by the time she had taken a vow to put her threat into execution, all the adventurous possibilities of such a resolve struck her so forcibly that Sir Tristram’s iniquities were quite ousted from her mind. She spent a pleasurable hour in thinking out a number of plans for her future. These were varied, but all of them impracticable, a circumstance which her common sense regretfully acknowledged. She was forced in the end to take her handmaiden into her confidence, having abandoned such attractive schemes as masquerading in male attire, or taking London by storm by enacting an unspecified tragic role at Drury Lane. It was a pity, but if one had the misfortune to be a person of Quality one could not become an actress; and although the notion of masquerading as a man appealed strongly to her, she was quite unable to carry her imagination farther than the first chapter of this exciting story. One would naturally leap into the saddle and ride off somewhere, but she could not decide where, or what to do.