flushed.
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “You did very well for a beginner. I regret receiving you like this. I hoped you’d sleep later. Will you be ready to set forward at noon?”
“No, I fear I shall not,” she answered. “We will stay where we are for to-day.” She picked up a pillow from the floor, and arranged it carefully under Vidal’s injured arm. “Is that more comfortable, sir?”
“Perfectly, I thank you. But whether you are ready, or not, we start for Paris today.”
She smiled lovingly at him. “It’s my turn to play the tyrant, sir. You will stay in bed.”
“You are mistaken; I shall do no such thing.”
He sounded cross; she wanted to take his face between her hands and kiss away his ill-humour. “No, sir, I am not mistaken.”
“May I ask, ma’am, how you propose to keep me a-bed?”
“Why yes, I have only to remove your clothes,” Miss Challoner pointed out.
“Very wifely,” he commented.
She winced a little at that, but said without a tremor: “I have sent your man for a surgeon. Pray do not blame him.”
“The devil you have!” said his lordship. “I’m not dying, you know.”
“Certainly not,” replied Miss Challoner. “But you drank a great deal too much wine yesterday, and I have little doubt it is that that has made you feverish, and maybe inflamed the wound. I think you should be blooded.”
My lord regarded her speechlessly. She drew a chair up and sat down. “Do you feel well enough to talk with me for a few minutes, sir?”
“Of course I am well enough to talk with you. What do you want to talk about?”
“My future, if you please.”
He looked frowningly at her. “That’s my affair, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “It is kind in you, my lord, but I do not aspire to be your wife. I have thought very deeply, and I believe I know what will be best for me to do. May I tell you what I have decided?”
He said with a flash of humour: “There seems to be a vast deal of decision about you this morning, my dear. Tell me, by all means.”
She folded her hands in her lap; it occurred to him that she was a very restful woman. “What you said last night, my lord, was true; I cannot return to my home. You must not think that this will grieve me overmuch. I have never been very happy there. So I have formed a plan for my future which I believe to be tolerably sensible. If you will take me to Paris I shall be grateful for your escort. Once I am there it is my intention to seek a post in a genteel family as governess. I thought, perhaps you would be able to put me in the way of it, since I suppose you have a large acquaintance in Paris.”
His lordship broke in at this point. “My good child, are you proposing that I should recommend you to some respectable matron?”
“Couldn’t you?” asked Miss Challoner anxiously.
“I could, of course, but—Lord, I’d give a monkey to see the matron’s face!”
“Oh!” said Miss Challoner. “I see. It was stupid of me not to think of that.” She relapsed into profound thought. “Well, if I cannot find anyone to recommend me as a governess, I think I shall become a milliner,” she announced.
He stretched out his right hand, and clasped both of hers in it. He was no longer laughing. “I don’t often suffer from remorse, Mary, but you are fast teaching me. Come, can’t you stomach me as a husband?”
“Even if I could, my lord, do you think I would steal you from my sister? It was not for that I took her place.”
“Steal me be damned!” said his lordship rudely. “I’d never the smallest notion of marrying Sophia.”
“Nevertheless, sir, I could not do it. The very thought of marriage is absurd. You do not care for me nor I for you, and my estate is too far removed from yours.”
“What is your estate?” he asked. “Who was your father?”
“Does it matter?” she said.
“Not a whit, but you puzzle me. You did not get your breeding on the distaff side.”
“I was fortunate enough to be educated at a very select seminary, sir.”
“You were, were you? Who placed you there?”
“My grandfather,” answered Miss Challoner unexpansively.
“Your father’s father? Is he alive? Who is her
“He is a general, sir.”
Vidal’s brows drew together. “What county?”
“He lives in Buckinghamshire, my lord.”
“Good God, never tell me you are Sir Giles Challoner’s grandchild?”
“I am,” said Miss Challoner calmly.
“Then I am undone, and we must be married at once,” said Vidal. “That stiff-necked old martinet is a friend of my father’s.”
Miss Challoner smiled. “You need not be alarmed, sir. My grandfather has been very kind to me in the past, but he disowned my father upon his marriage, and has washed his hands of me since I choose to live with my mother and sister. He will not concern himself with my fate.”
“He’ll concern himself fast enough if he gets wind of his granddaughter in a milliner’s shop,” said Vidal.
“Of course I shall not become a milliner under my own name,” Miss Challoner explained.
“You won’t become one under any name, my girl. Make the best of it: marriage with me is the only thing for you now. I am sorry for it, but as a husband I believe you won’t find me exacting. You may go your own road—I shan’t interfere with you so long as you remain discreet—I’ll go mine. You need see very little of me.”
The prospect chilled Miss Challoner to the soul, but observing my lord’s heightened colour she judged it wiser not to argue with him any further at present. She got up, saying quietly: “We will talk of it again presently, my lord. You are tired now, and the surgeon will soon be here.”
He caught her wrist and held it. “Give me your word you’ll not slip off while I’m laid by the heels!”
She could not resist the temptation of touching his hand. “I promise I’ll not do that,” she said reassuringly. “I won’t leave your protection till we reach Paris.”
When the surgeon came he talked volubly and learnedly, with a great many exclamations and hand-wavings. His lordship suffered this for some time, but presently became annoyed and opened his eyes (which he had closed after the first five minutes) and disposed of the little surgeon’s diagnosis and proposed remedies in one rude and extremely idiomatic sentence.
The doctor started back as from a stinging nettle unwarily grasped: “Monsieur, I was informed that you were an Englishman!” he said.
My lord said, amongst other things, that he did not propose to burden the doctor with the details of his genealogy. He consigned the doctor and all his works, severally and comprehensively described, to hell, and finished up his epic speech by a pungent and Rabelaisian criticism of the whole race of leeches.
Whereupon the doctor, who had listened rapt to the unfaltering diatribe, said with enthusiasm: “But it is wonderful! An Englishman to have so great a command of the French tongue! It is what compels the admiration! I shall now bleed you. Madame will have the goodness to hold the basin. The English have such phlegm!”
Vidal became aware of Miss Challoner standing demurely by the door. “What, are you here?” he said. “Do you understand French?”
“Tolerably well, sir,” she replied placidly. “How well?” demanded his lordship. A glint of amusement shone in her grey eyes. “Well enough to understand the doctor, my lord. But I could not follow very much of what you said. Most of the words you used were strange to me.”
“Thank God for that!” said Vidal. “Now go away, there’s a good girl, and leave me to deal with this fellow.”
“Having phlegm, sir, I am to hold the basin,” replied Miss Challoner. “You did as much for me, after all.”
He grinned. “I’d a notion you’d never forgive me for that, whatever else you forgave.”
“Forgive you? I was exceedingly grateful,” said Miss Challoner matter-of-factly.
“You’re a remarkable woman,” he said. “But I’ll have none of this blood-letting for all that.”
Miss Challoner had the bowl ready. She said kindly: “It will not hurt you, sir, I assure you.”
