“Voyons!” Léonie’s eyes sparkled. “I think it was very well done of you, madame! Will you come to Paris too? I am to make my curtsy to the World, Monseigneur says, and go to balls. Please come, madame!”

“Depend upon it, I shall come, my love. ’Tis the very thing for which I have been pining. My sweetest life, there is a milliner in the Rue Royale who has the most ravishing styles! Oh, I will teach Edward a lesson!”

“Edward,” remarked his Grace, “is like to follow you demanding my blood. We must await his coming.”

“Dear Edward!” sighed my lady. “I do hope that he will not come, but I dare swear he will. And now for the love of heaven let me have your story! I shall die of curiosity else.”

So Léonie and Rupert poured forth the tale of their adventures once more into a most sympathetic ear. Fanny interspersed the recital with suitable exclamations, flew up and embraced Rupert before he could save himself when she heard of his narrow escape, and at the end of it all stared in amazement at his Grace, and burst out laughing.

The Duke smiled down at her.

“It makes you feel middle-aged, my dear? Alas!”

“No indeed!” My lady fanned herself. “I felt an hundred in my boredom, but this adventure—faith, ’tis the maddest ever I heard—throws me back into my teens, ’pon rep it does! Justin, you should have cut him to pieces with your small-sword, the villain!”

“That is what I think,” Léonie struck in. “I wanted to make him sorry, madame. It was a great impertinence.”

“A very proper spirit, my love, but if you in sooth flung a cup of hot coffee over him I’ll wager you made him sorry enough. La, what a hoyden you are, child! But I vow I envy you your courage. Saint-Vire? Ay, I know him well. A head of hair that could set six hayricks ablaze, and the most unpleasant eyes of any I know. What did he want with you, sweet?”

“I do not know,” Léonie answered. “And Monseigneur will not tell.”

“Oh, so you know, Justin? I might have guessed it! Some fiendish game you will be playing.” My lady shut her fan with a click. “It’s time I took a hand indeed! I’ll not have this child endangered by your mad tricks, Justin. Poor angel, I shudder to think of what might have befallen you!”

“Your solicitude for my ward’s safety is charming, Fanny, but I believe I am able to protect her.”

“Of course he is!” said Léonie. “Do I not belong to him?” She put her hand on his Grace’s arm, and smiled up at him.

My lady looked, and her eyes narrowed. On Rupert’s face she surprised a knowing grin, and of a sudden jumped up, saying that she must see to the bestowal of her boxes.

“Faith, the inn won’t hold them!” chuckled Rupert. “Where are you to sleep, Fan?”

“I do not care an I sleep in an attic!” said my lady. “’Deed, I almost expect to sleep in the stables! It would be fitting in such a venture.”

“I believe we need not put that upon you,” said his Grace. “Gaston shall remove my trunks into Rupert’s chamber. Thus you may have my room.”

“My dear, ’twill do excellently well! You shall show me the way, Léonie. ’Pon rep, child, you grow more lovely each day!” She put her arm about Léonie’s waist, and went out with her.

“Egad, here’s a fine muddle!” said Rupert, when the door was shut behind the ladies. “Fan’s in a mighty good humour, but lord! is she to come with us?”

“I imagine that the worthy Edward will have a word to say to that,” Avon replied.

“How Fan could have chosen such a dull dog, and you abetted her, I don’t know!” said Rupert.

“My dear boy, I abetted her because he was dull enough to sober her. And he has money.”

“There’s that, of course, but, faith, he’d turn the milk sour if he smiled at it! Will you take Fan alone?”

“I almost think that I shall,” said Avon. “I could find no better hostess.”

Rupert stared.

“Are you going to entertain, Justin?”

“Lavishly, Rupert. It will be most fatiguing, but I have a duty as Léonie’s guardian which I must endeavour to perform.”

Rupert sat up in his chair, and spoke briskly.

“You may count on my presence for the season, Justin.”

“I am honoured, of course,” bowed his Grace.

“Ay, but—but will you let me join your party?” Rupert asked.

“You will add quite a cachet to my poor house,” Avon drawled. “Yes, child, you may join us, provided you behave with proper circumspection, and refrain from paying my very dear friend back in his own coin.”

“What, am I not to call him out?” demanded Rupert.

“It is so clumsy,” sighed his Grace. “You may leave him to my—er—tender mercies—with a clear conscience. The hole in your shoulder is added to the debt he owes me. He shall pay—in full.”

“Poor devil!” said Rupert, feelingly. He saw into his brother’s eyes, and ceased to smile. “My God, Justin, do you hate him so?”

“Bah!” said his Grace. “—I borrow the word from my infant’s vocabulary—does one hate an adder? Because it is venomous and loathsome one crushes it underfoot, as I shall crush this Comte.”

“Because of what happened twenty years ago—to you?” Rupert asked, greatly daring.

“No, boy. Not that, though it weighs also in the scale.”

“Because of what he did to Léonie, then?”

“Because of what he did to my infant,” softly echoed his Grace. “Yes, child.”

“There’s more to this than meets the eye,” said Rupert with conviction.

“Much more,” agreed his Grace. The unaccustomed harshness went from his face, and left it inscrutable as ever. “Remind me, boy, that I owe you a diamond pin. It was a single stone, I think, of a peculiar beauty?”

“Ay, you gave it me, years ago.”

“I wonder what can have possessed me?” said his Grace. “No doubt you were—er—‘basking in the sunshine of my approval.’”

CHAPTER XXIII

Mr. Marling Allows himself to be Persuaded

Lady Fanny partook of breakfast in bed next morning, and was sipping her hot chocolate when Léonie scratched on the door. My lady put up her hands to her pretty nightcap and patted her golden curls before she called “Come in!”

“Oh, ’tis you, child! Mercy, are you riding out so early?”

Léonie was in riding dress, with polished boots, and leathern gauntlets, tasselled, and a big black beaver on her head with a long feather that swept her shoulder.

“Yes, madame, but only if you do not need me. Monseigneur said that I must ask you.”

Lady Fanny nibbled at a sweet biscuit and regarded the bed-post with rapt interest.

“No, child, no. Why should I need you? Lud, what roses you have, I’d give my best necklet for your complexion. To be sure, I had it once. Go, my love. Don’t keep Justin waiting. Is Rupert up?”

“His valet dresses him, madame.”

“I’ll bear him company in the parlour,” said her ladyship, and pushed her cup and saucer away. “Away with you, child! Stay! Send Rachel to me, my love, if you will be so good.”

Léonie went with alacrity. Half an hour later my lady, having bustled exceedingly, came tripping into the parlour dressed in a flowered muslin, and her fair hair unpowdered beneath a becoming cap. Rupert looked up as she entered, and put down the book over which he had been yawning.

“Lord, you’re up early, Fan!”

“I came to bear you company,” she cooed, and went to sit by him, at the window.

“Wonders’ll never cease,” Rupert said. He felt that this amiability on Fanny’s part ought not to go unrewarded. “You look twenty this morning, Fan, ’pon my soul you do!” he said handsomely.

“Dear Rupert! Do you really think so?”

“Ay,—that’ll do, though! Léonie has gone riding with his Grace.”

“Rupert,” said my lady.

“Ay, what?”

Fanny looked up.

“I have made up my mind to it Justin shall marry that child.”

Rupert was unperturbed.

“Will he, do you think?”

“My dear boy, he’s head over ears in love with her!”

“I know that—I’m not blind, Fan. But he’s been in love before.”

“You are most provoking, Rupert! Pray what has that to do with it?”

“He’s not married any of ’em,” said my lord.

Fanny affected to be shocked.

“Rupert!”

“Don’t be prudish, Fanny! That’s Edward’s doing, I know.”

“Rupert, if you are minded to be unkind about dear Edward——”

“Devil take Edward!” said Rupert cheerfully.

Fanny eyed him for a moment in silence, and suddenly smiled.

“I am not come to quarrel with you, horrid boy. Justin would not take Léonie as his mistress.”

“No, damme, I believe you’re right. He’s turned so strict you’d scarce know him. But marriage——! He’d not be so easily trapped.”

“Trapped?” cried my lady. “It’s no such thing! The child has no notion of wedding him. And that is why he will want her to wife, mark my words!”

“He might,” Rupert said dubiously. “But—Lord, Fanny, he’s turned forty, and she’s a babe!”

“She is twenty, my dear, or near it. ’Twould be charming! She will always think him wonderful, and she’ll not mind his morals, for she’s none herself; and he—oh, he will be the strictest husband in town, and the most delightful! She will always be his infant, I dare swear, and he ‘Monseigneur’. I am determined he shall wed her. Now what do you say?”

“I? I’d be pleased enough, but—egad, Fanny, we don’t know who she is! Bonnard? I’ve never met the name, and it hath a plaguey bourgeois ring to it, damme, so it has! And Justin—well, y’know, he’s Alastair of Avon, and it won’t do for him to marry a nobody.”

“Pooh!” said my lady. “I’ll wager my reputation she does not come of common stock. There’s some mystery, Rupert.”