“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.”
“Any fool could tell that,” Rupert said frankly. “And if you asked me, Fan, I’d say she was related to Saint-Vire.” He leaned back in his chair and looked for surprise in his sister. It did not come.
“Where would be my wits if I’d not seen that?” demanded Fanny. “As soon as I heard that ’twas Saint-Vire who carried her off I felt positive she was a baseborn child of his.”
Rupert spluttered.
“Gad, would you have Justin marry any such?”
“I should not mind at all,” said my lady.
“He won’t do it,” Rupert said with conviction. “He’s a rake, but he knows what’s due to the family, I’ll say that for him.”
“Pho!” My lady snapped her fingers. “If he loves her he’ll not trouble his head over the family. Why, what did I care for the family when I married Edward?”
“Steady, steady! Marling has his faults, I’m not saying he hasn’t, but there’s no bad blood in his family, and you can trace him back to—”
“Stupid creature, could I not have had Fonteroy for the lifting of a finger? Ay, or my Lord Blackwater, or his Grace of Cumming? Yet I chose Edward, who beside them was a nobody.”
“Damn it, he’s not baseborn!”
“I would not have cared, I give you my word!”
Rupert shook his head.
“It’s lax, Fanny, ’fore Gad, it’s lax. I don’t like it.”
My lady pulled a face at him.
“Oh, tell Justin you do not like it, my dear! Tell him—”
“I’m not meddling in Justin’s affairs, I thank you. He’ll do as he likes, but I’ll lay you a monkey he weds no bastard.”
“Done!” said my lady. “Oh, Rupert! I lost my big emerald at play last week! I could have cried my eyes out, and Edward could only say that it must be a lesson to me!”
“That’s Edward all over,” nodded Rupert. “Don’t I know it!”
“No, you do not, tiresome boy! He will give me another emerald.” She blinked rapidly. “Indeed, he is very good to me. I wonder if he will come here? I vow I shall be miserable if he does not!”
Rupert’s eyes were on the street.
“Well, he has come, and mighty apropos, too.”
“What! Is it really he, Rupert? You’re not teasing me?”
“No, it is he, right enough, and in a thundering rage, by the look of him.”
Lady Fanny sighed ecstatically.
“Darling Edward! He will be very angry with me, I am sure.”
Marling came quickly in. He was travel-stained, and heavy-eyed from lack of sleep, and his mouth was set in an uncompromising fashion. He looked his pretty wife over in silence.
“That’s the last of us,” said Rupert jovially. “We’ve all the family now, glory be! Give you good morrow, Edward!”
Lady Fanny rose, and held out her hand.
“Edward, I protest this is foolish of you.”
He ignored the outstretched hand.
“You’ll return with me today, Fanny. I don’t brook your defiance.”
“Whew!” spoke Rupert under his breath. “Sa-sa—Have at you!”
Lady Fanny tittered.
“Oh, sir, you are ungallant! Pray have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You come to me muddied and in disorder! And
