distant places as Turkey and Russia. On his return he had fallen violently in love with a beautiful girl who was then the toast of the county and, to the delight of all their acquaintances, married her. But their happiness had been shortlived. One night an overturned candle had set the curtains of the poor girl's bed alight and she had been burned to death before anyone could come to her assistance.
For some months the Colonel had shut himself up, refusing all consolation. Then scandalous rumours had begun to circulate. It was said that he had a gipsy girl living in the house. With the easy morality of the times none of his neighbours would have condemned him for endeavouring to console himself with a pretty mistress, though it was thought in ill taste to keep the woman in the home to which he had only eighteen months before brought his young bride; but when a few months later he openly announced that he had married the gipsy, the depths of their disapproval were beyond plumbing.
Henceforth the Colonel was ostracised by all who had known him, and to complete his apparent discomfiture, his gipsy wife had died in bringing a daughter into the world. Actually he was little affected by the county's condemnation, since he was richer than most of his neighbours, spent much of his time in London and—as he had never been a sporting man—when at his country home was perfectly content to amuse himself pottering in his well-stocked garden or browsing among his fine collection of books.
If anyone had suffered it was his daughter, since, even when she reached her teens, he had made no attempt to reopen social relations with his neighbours on her account and, although many of them were sorry for the motherless girl, they felt that it was not for them to take the first step.
Yet Georgina would not have had matters otherwise. She was shrewd enough to know that had local society been open to her she would have had to accept the authority of a governess, and been expected to conform to the simpering manners and unexciting ladylike pursuits of her contemporaries. Her father was wealthy, generous and a man of taste. He ordered her clothes in London, so that her wardrobe put those of the local belles to shame, and had provided her with an education far above that of the average girl of her age by the simple process of long intimate talks and encouraging her to read widely, no book in his library being barred to her.
The Colonel had scarcely given orders for Roger's mare to be taken round to the stables when there came a cry of delight from behind them. Turning, he saw Georgina, as fresh and pretty as a red rose with the morning dew still on it, come running down the staircase and with his three-cornered hat still in his hand he made her a most gallant leg.
She was now seventeen, over a year older than Roger, and well developed for her age. It is doubtful if, when they first met, she would have bothered with him but for her instinctive urge to captivate every male she set her black eyes upon, and the fact that he filled the need she unconsciously felt for a companion who could share her youthful enthusiasms. She had inherited the dark, lush beauty, big dewy eyes and full ripe mouth of her gipsy mother; had a splendid figure and a graceful freedom of carriage born of unrestrained activity in the open air. She rode like a female centaur, swam like a dryad and could climb trees with the agility of a monkey.
Roger was not in love with her but the feelings she aroused in him were as near love as he had so far got. He admired her dark beauty and at times was conscious of an uneasy feeling when he touched her; but she was too abrupt in her changes of mood and too dominating a personality to fit into his vague imaginings, which centred round a dreamy, fair-haired blue-eyed, creature reclining indolently on a settee. His attachment to her was much more in the nature of an honest comradeship, yet flavoured with a romantic desire to be her champion against the slight that he felt her neighbours had put upon her.
Georgina fully reciprocated the comradeship and accepted his awkward attempts at chivalry with secret mirth. She was, however, fully conscious that he was an embryo man and, for lack of more mature material to practise on, took delight in trying out his reactions to her latest toilettes and, on rare occasions, seeking to see how near she could get to rousing his apparently dormant passions.
Those passions were actually by no means so dormant as she supposed. Roger had little left to learn theoretically about the tender passion and had so far refrained from its practice only on account of a certain fastidiousness. In those days of easy morals no one thought the worse of a youngster for giving free rein to his budding desires, providing he did not attempt his friends' sisters, and there were few country girls who did not consider it an honour to be seduced by a son of the quality. Roger knew half a dozen boys of his own age at Sherborne who had found willing initiators into the mysteries in then-mother's maids, and one much-admired young coxcomb who had even successfully invaded the bed of his married cousin.
But Roger, having toyed with the idea of both Polly and Nell during his last holidays, had decided to wait until he came across a young girl of less buxom charms and one who would prove more mentally exciting. As far as Georgina was concerned he knew that to think of her in that way was to play with fire, and, since he placed her automatically in the same category as he would have one of his friend's sisters, he rarely allowed himself to do so.
Yet now, as they all went into the dining-room, he could not help remarking how much more beautiful she seemed to have become since he had last seen her, and the laughter in her wicked dark eyes gave him a sudden half-guilty thrill.
The dining-room was furnished with the new tulip-wood which was just then coming into fashion and the two sideboards were laden, one with half a dozen hot dishes, the other with a cold ham, pig's face and crystal bowls of peaches, nectarines, apricots arid grapes from Colonel Thursby's glass-houses.
The Colonel and Roger helped themselves lavishly, but after surveying the tempting array uncertainly for a moment, Georgina declared with a pout: 'The very sight of food so early in the day gives me the vapours. 'Twill be as much as I can do to face a bowl of bread and milk.'
Roger looked at her in astonishment, but the Colonel gave him a sly wink. 'See, Roger, what a London season has done for your old playfellow. Had we had notice of your coming, I vow she would have had her hair dressed a foot high and used a sack of flour upon it; 'tis only overnight that she has lost that fine appetite of hers.
Then he turned to his daughter and gave her a friendly slap on the behind. 'Don't be a fool, girl, or you'll be famished by mid-morning. Pretend to live on air when you're in London, if you will, but spare us these conceits here in the country.'
Georgina suddenly burst out laughing. 'Oh, well, give me some salmon pasty then, and an egg; but no bacon; the fat makes me queasy, and that's the truth.'
Roger had been so occupied with his own concerns that he had temporarily forgotten that Georgina must have only just returned from her first London season, and so now should be definitely regarded as grown up. With a smile he asked her how she had enjoyed herself.
' Twas a riot,' she declared, enthusiastically. 'Balls, routs and conversaziones tumbled a-top of each other with a swiftness you'd scarce credit possible. For all of ten weeks I was never up before midday or abed before two in the morning.'
'I wonder you didn't die of your exertions, but I must say you look none the worse for it,' remarked her father. ' 'Tis your poor aunt that I was sorry for, though. I wouldn't have had the chaperoning of you for a mint of money.'
Georgina shrugged. 'Since you paid her five hundred guineas to take me out, and footed the bill for her to present that milk-sop daughter of hers into the bargain, she has no cause to complain.'
'Was Queen Charlotte's drawing-room as splendid as accounts of it lead one to believe?' asked Roger.
' 'Twas a truly marvellous spectacle. All the gentlemen in their fine uniforms and the ladies with tiaras and great ostrich feathers in their hair. And you should have heard the buzz when I made my curtsy. I near died of gratification.'
Her father glanced at her with unconcealed pride. 'Yes, you certainly took the town by storm; 'tis not many girls who become one of the reigning toasts in their first season.'
'You did not lack for beaux, then?' Roger said, feeling a distinct twinge of jealousy.
'Lud, no!' she laughed. 'I had a score of proposals, and am half committed to three young bucks; but I doubt if I'll take any of them.'
'What did you enjoy most—apart from all these flirtations?' inquired Roger, with a faintly malicious grin.
Her black eyes sparkled. ' 'Tis hard to say. The ball father gave for me at our own house in Bedford Square was a roaring success. Then there was our grand day at the Derby, where I won twenty guineas. I loved His Grace of Queensberry's water party down at Richmond, and the night we all went masked to Vauxhall Gardens. But I think my most prodigious thrill, apart from my presentation, was to see Mrs. Siddons play Lady Macbeth at His Majesty's theatre in Drury Lane.'
