Bath Tangle

moment, listening to Fanny but surveying the Major from under his frowning brows; then he turned his head towards Serena, and said: “I imagine Lady Theresa will have told you of Buckingham’s duel with Sir Thomas Hardy? An odd business! The cause is said to be some offensive letters written to and about Lady Hardy. Anonymous, of course, but Hardy held Buckingham to be the author.”

“Persuaded by her ladyship! Of that I am in no doubt! I don’t credit a word of it! Does anyone?”

“Only the inveterate scandalmongers. The character of a gentleman protects Buckingham, or should.”

“I think so indeed! But tell me, Ivo! how does the antiquated courtship progress? My aunt wrote of having seen their Senilities flirting away at some party or other!”

He replied, with a caustic comment which made her burst out laughing; and in another moment they were in the thick of the sort of conversation Fanny had hoped might be averted. Rotherham seemed to have recovered from his ill-humour: he was regaling Serena with a salted anecdote. Names and nicknames were tossed to and fro; it was Rotherham now who had taken charge of the conversation, Fanny thought, and once again she was labouring to keep pace with it. There was something about the Duke of Devonshire dining at Carlton House, and sitting between the Chancellor and Lord Caithness: what was there in that to make Serena exclaim? Ponsonby too idle, Tierney too unwell, Lord George Cavendish too insolent for leadership: what leadership?

“I thought they had made no way this session!” Serena said.

“The reverse! Brougham threw the cat among the pigeons, of course. By the by, Croker came out admirably over the attack on the Navy Estimates: he was offered a Privy Councillor’s office as a result, but declined it.”

“Are you interested in politics, Major Kirkby?” said Fanny despairingly.

“Not in the least!” he replied, in cheerful accents.

“For shame, Hector!” Serena rallied him.

He smiled at her, but shook his head. “You will have to instruct me!”

“You have been interested in more important matters, Major,” said Rotherham, leaning back in his chair, the fingers of one hand crooked-round the stem of his wineglass.

“I don’t know that. Certainly politics have not come in my way yet.”

“You must bring him in, Serena. The Party needs new blood.”

“Not I!” she returned lightly. “How odious it would be of me to try to push him into what he does not care for!”

“You will do it, nevertheless.”

“Do you care to wager on that chance?”

“It would be robbing you. You will never be able to keep your talents buried.” He raised his glass to his lips, and over it looked at the Major. “Serena was made to be a political hostess, you know. Can you subdue her? I doubt it.”

“She knows I would never try to do so.”

“Good God!” said Rotherham. “I hope you are not serious! The picture you conjure up is quite horrifying, believe me!”

“And I hope that Hector knows that you arc talking nonsense!” Serena said, stretching out her hand to the Major, and bestowing her most brilliant smile upon him.

He took the hand, and kissed it. “Of course I do! And you know that whatever you wish me to do I shall like to do!” he said laughingly.

Rotherham sipped his wine, watching this by-play with unexpected approval in his face. The second course had come to an end, and, in obedience to a sign from Serena, the servants had left the room. Fanny picked up her fan, but before she could rise, Serena said: “Have I your consent and approval, Ivo?”

“Certainly—unless I discover that the Major has a wife in Spain, or some other such trifling impediment. When do you propose to be married?”

“It cannot be until I am out of mourning. I don’t feel it would be proper even to announce the engagement at this present.”

“Most improper. It will be as well, however, since the control of your fortune will pass from my hands to his, if I have some talk with him on this subject.”

“Yes, pray do!” she said cordially. “And I wish you will tell me what I may count on, Ivo! I never made the least inquiry, you know, because to know the precise sum I might have enjoyed, but for that abominable Trust, would have made my situation the more insupportable.”

“About ten thousand a year,” he replied indifferently.

“Ten thousand a year?” repeated the Major, in an appalled voice.

Rotherham glanced at him across the table. “You may call it that. It is not possible to be quite exact. It is derived from several sources, which I shall presently explain to you.”

“But—Good God, how can this be? I knew, of course, that some disparity between our fortunes there must be, but this—!”

“I own, I had not thought it would be as much,” said Serena, mildly surprised.

“But there must have been an entail!” the Major exclaimed, as though snatching at a straw of hope. “Such an income as that represents—” He broke off, in the throes of calculation.

“Something in the region of two hundred thousand,” supplied Rotherham helpfully. “All that belongs to the Carlow family naturally goes with the title. This fortune was inherited by the late Earl from his mother, and belonged absolutely to himself.”

“Yes, I knew that,” said Serena. “Papa always told me I should inherit my grandmother’s property, but I supposed it to be a comfortable independence merely. I call this a very respectable fortune, don’t you, Fanny?”

“I should not know what to do with the half of it!” Fanny said, awed.

Rotherham smiled. “Serena will know. The strongest likelihood is that she will run into debt.”

“I should wish it to be tied up!”

These words, vehemently uttered, made Serena look at the Major in great surprise. “Why, what can you mean, love? You can’t suppose I shall do anything so absurd as to run into debt! I assure you I am not so improvident! Rotherham, I have not the remotest guess why you should laugh in that detestable way! I was never in debt in my life!”

He threw her a glance of mockery. “You must forgive me, Serena! I wish you will tell me how you contrived, on the seven hundred pounds a year which I, in my ignorance, thought you spent on your attire, to maintain that expensive stable of yours.”

“You know very well that Papa bought all my horses!” she said.

“Just so,” he agreed. “Now you will be obliged to buy your own.”

“Which I can well afford to do, and remain excellently mounted!”

“Certainly you can, but you will have to take care, you know! It won’t do to be paying nine hundred guineas for some showy-looking bay you are glad to part with on any terms at the end of your first day out on him.”

Wrath flamed in her eyes and her cheeks. “Were you never taken in over a horse?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said reflectively. “But I can’t recall that I ever paid a fancy price for an animal which—”

“Be quiet!” she shot at him. “All those years ago—when I was still green—! Only you would cast it up at me still, Rotherham! Do I make mistakes now? Do I?”

“Oh, not as bad as that one!” he said. “I’m prepared to bet a large sum on your having paid too much for that mare I saw at Milverley, but—”

She was on her feet. “If you dare—if you dare tell me again she’s too short in the back—!”

“Serena, for heaven’s sake!” begged the Major. “You are distressing Lady Spenborough! What the deuce does it matter if Lord Rotherham chooses to criticize the mare?”

She paid not the slightest heed, but drove home her challenge. “Well, my lord? Well?”

“Don’t try to browbeat me, my girl!” he replied. “I tell you again, too short in the back!” He looked at her, his eyes glinting. “And you know it!”

She bit her lip. Her eyes strove with his for a moment or two, but suddenly she burst into laughter, and sat down again. “Of all the odious creatures—! Perhaps she is a trifle too short in the back—but only a trifle! You need not have been so unhandsome as to provoke me into exposing myself to my betrothed!”

The glint was still in his eyes, but he said: “The temptation was irresistible to see whether you would take