The Corinthian

see you myself next morning, and I found Louisa and George there, and the whole house in a pucker, with not a man-jack knowing where the devil you’d got to. Oh, by Jupiter, and George would have it you had drowned yourself!”

“Drowned myself! Good God, why?”

“Melissa, dear boy, Melissa!” chuckled Cedric. “Bed not slept in—crumpled cravat in the grate—lock of—” He broke off, and jerked his head round to stare at Pen. “By God, I have it! Now I know what was puzzling me! That hair! It was yours!”

“Oh, the devil!” said Sir Richard. “So that was found, was it?”

“One golden curl under a shawl. George would have it it was a relic of your past. But hell and the devil confound it, it don’t make sense! You never went to call on Ricky in the small hours to get your hair cut, boy!”

“No, but he said I wore my hair too long, and that he would not go about with me looking so,” said Pen desperately. “And he didn’t like my cravat either. He was drunk, you know.”

“He wasn’t as drunk as that,” said Cedric. “I don’t know who you are, but you ain’t Ricky’s cousin. In fact, it’s my belief you ain’t even a boy! Damme, you’re Ricky’s past, that’s what you are!”

“I am not!” said Pen indignantly. “It is quite true that I’m not a boy, but I never saw Richard in my life until that night!”

“Never saw him until that night?” repeated Cedric, dazed.

“No! It was all chance, wasn’t it, Richard?”

“It was,” agreed Sir Richard, who seemed to be amused. “She dropped out of a window into my arms, Ceddie.”

“She dropped out of—give me some more burgundy!” said Cedric.

Chapter 13

Having fortified himself from the decanter, Cedric sighed, and shook his head. “No use, it still seems devilish odd to me. Females don’t drop out of windows.”

“Well, I didn’t drop out precisely. I climbed out, because I was escaping from my relations.”

“I’ve often wanted to escape from mine, but I never thought of climbing out of a window.”

“Of course not!” said Pen scornfully. “You are a man!”

Cedric seemed dissatisfied. “Only females escape out of windows? Something wrong there.”

“I think you are excessively stupid. I escaped out of the window because it was dangerous to go by the door. And Richard happened to be passing at the time, which was a very fortunate circumstance because the sheets were not long enough, and I had to jump.”

“Do you mean to tell me you climbed down the sheets?” demanded Cedric.

“Yes, of course. How else could I have got out, pray?”

“Well, if that don’t beat all!” he exclaimed admiringly.

“Oh, that was nothing! Only when Sir Richard guessed that I was not a boy he thought it would not be proper for me to journey to this place alone, so he took me to his house, and cut my hair more neatly at the back, and tied my cravat for me, and—and that is why you found those things in his library!”

Cedric cocked an eye at Sir Richard. “Damme, I knew you’d shot the cat, Ricky, but I never guessed you were as bosky as that!”

“Yes,” said Sir Richard reflectively, “I fancy I must have been rather more up in the world than I suspected.”

“Up in the world! Dear old boy, you must have been clean raddled! And how the deuce did you get here? For I remember now that George said your horses were all in the stables. You never travelled in a hired chaise, Ricky!”

“Certainly not,” said Sir Richard. “We travelled on the stage.”

“On the—on the—” Words failed Cedric.

“That was Pen’s notion,” Sir Richard explained kindly. “I must confess I was not much in favour of it, and I still consider the stage an abominable vehicle, but there is no denying we had a very adventurous journey. Really, to have gone post would have been sadly flat. We were over-turned in a ditch; we became—er—intimately acquainted with a thief; we found ourselves in possession of stolen goods; assisted in an elopement; and discovered a murder. I had not dreamt life could hold so much excitement.”

Cedric, who had been gazing at him open-mouthed, began to laugh. “Lord, I shall never get over this! You, Ricky! Oh Lord, and there was Louisa ready to swear you would never do anything unbefitting a man of fashion, and George thinking you at the bottom of the river, and Melissa standing to it that you had gone off to watch a mill! Gad, she’ll be as mad as fire! Out-jockeyed, by Jupiter! Piqued, repiqued, slammed, and capotted!” He once more mopped his eyes with the Belcher handkerchief. “You’ll have to buy me that pair of colours, Ricky: damme, you owe it to me, for I told you to run, now, didn’t I?”

“But he did not run!” Pen said anxiously. “It was I who ran. Richard didn’t.”

“Oh yes, I did!” said Sir Richard taking snuff.

“No, no, you know you only came to take care of me; you said I could not go alone!”

Cedric looked at her in a puzzled way. “Y’know, I can’t make this out at all! If you only met three nights ago, you can’t be eloping!”

“Of course we’re not eloping! I came here on—on a private matter, and Richard pretended to be my tutor. There is not a question of eloping!”

“Tutor? Lord! I thought you said he was your cousin?”

“My dear Cedric, do try not to be so hidebound!” begged Sir Richard. “I have figured as a tutor, an uncle, a trustee, and a cousin.”

“You seem to me to be a sad romp!” Cedric told Pen severely. “How old are you?”

“I am seventeen, but I do not see that it is any concern of yours.”

“Seventeen!” Cedric cast a dismayed glance at Sir Richard. “Ricky, you madman! You’re in the basket now, the pair of you! And what your mother and Louisa will say, let alone that sour-faced sister of mine—! When is the wedding?”

“That,” said Sir Richard, “is the point we were discussing when you walked in on us.”

“Better get married quietly somewhere where you ain’t known. You know what people are!” Cedric said, wagging his head. “Damme, if I won’t be best man!”

“Well, you won’t,” said Pen, flushing. “We are not going to be married. It is quite absurd to think of such a thing.”

“I know it’s absurd,” replied Cedric frankly. “But you should have thought of that before you started jauntering about the country in this crazy fashion. There’s nothing for it now: you’ll have to be married!”

“I won’t!” Pen declared. “No one need ever know that I am not a boy, except you, and one other, who doesn’t signify.”

“But my dear girl, it won’t do! Take it from me, it won’t do! If you don’t know that, I’ll be bound Ricky does. I daresay you don’t fancy the notion, but he’s a devilish fine catch, you know. Blister it, we were looking to him to bring our family fortunes about, so we were!” he added, with an irrepressible chuckle.

“I think you are vulgar and detestable!” said Pen. “I have got a great deal of money of my own; in fact, I’m an heiress, and I have a very good mind not to marry anyone!”

“But only think what a waste!” protested Cedric. “If you are an heiress, and you can’t stomach the notion of marrying Ricky, for which I won’t blame you, for the Lord knows he’s no lady’s man!—a hardened case, m’dear: never looked seriously at a female in his life!—I suppose you wouldn’t make shift with your humble servant?”

“Your conversation, my dear Cedric, is always edifying,” said Sir Richard icily.

But Pen, instead of being offended, giggled. “No, thank you. I shouldn’t like to marry you at all.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t. You’ll have to take Ricky, then: nothing else for it! But you’re too young for him: no getting away from that! Damme, if I know what maggot got into your heads to set you off on this crazy adventure!”

“You are labouring under a misapprehension, Cedric,” said Sir Richard. “There is nothing I desire more than