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‘Oh, well, my love, upon credit! Everyone has been most obliging!’
‘Merciful heavens!’ muttered the Viscount. ‘What credit, ma’am?’
‘But, Alan, they all guess that you are going to marry dear Hetty, and they know her fortune to be immense!’
‘O my God!’ said the Viscount, and strode over to the window. ‘So that’s it, is it?’
Lady Allerton regarded his straight back in some dismay. ‘It has always been an understood thing!’ she faltered.
‘Nonsense!’
‘But it was my dear brother’s wish!’
‘It can scarcely have been his wish that his daughter should be married to an impoverished – fortune-hunter!’ said the Viscount bitterly. ‘And it must be very far from Sir John Ossett’s wish!’
‘Now there you are out!’ said her ladyship triumphantly. ‘Sir John will raise not the smallest objection to the match, for he has told me so! He knows it is what my brother intended, and, what is more, he has a great regard for you, my love!’
‘I am obliged to him!’
‘Alan!’ ejaculated her ladyship. ‘You – you have not formed an attachment for another?’
‘No!’
‘No, I was persuaded – Dearest, I thought – Of course, she was very young when you went away, but it did seem to me –’
‘Mama,’ he interrupted, ‘whatever my sentiments, you cannot have supposed it possible that I would offer for my cousin in my present circumstances!’
‘But it seems just the moment!’ protested his mother. ‘Besides, she expects it!’
He wheeled about. ‘Expects it?’
‘Yes, I assure you she does! Dearest Hetty! If she could have done it, she would have bestowed her entire fortune on me! I never knew a better-hearted girl, never!’
‘Oh, good God, then that is why she is now so shy of me!’ said the Viscount. ‘My poor little cousin! How could you let her think it was her duty to marry me, Mama? It is infamous! Have you kept her shut away from the world in case she should meet a more eligible suitor than ever I can be?’
‘No, I have not!’ replied Lady Allerton, affronted. ‘I brought her out two years ago, and she has had a great many suitors, and has refused them all! She is a very well-behaved girl, and would never dream of marrying to disoblige me!’
‘She has been shamefully used!’ he said.
2
THE OBJECT OF the Viscount’s pity, Miss Henrietta Clitheroe, was at the moment seated in a small saloon at the back of the house, studying, with her young cousin, the latest issue of La Belle Assemblée, and endeavouring to convince Miss Allerton that a dress of gauze worn over a damped and transparent petticoat was a toilette scarcely designed to advance her in the good graces of those august members of the ton who were pledged to appear at her mama’s party given in honour of the Grandduchess Catherine of Oldenburg. This was not a circumstance which weighed with Miss Allerton, who, at seventeen, was thought by the censorious to have been born for the express purpose of driving her mother into her grave by the outrageous nature of her pranks; but she knew that she would never be permitted to wear such a dress, and so allowed herself to be distracted by the picture of a damsel arrayed in white satin embellished with rosebuds and love-knots.
She was just saying, though disconsolately, that she supposed it was quite a pretty dress, when the Viscount came into the room, and, still holding the door, said: ‘The latest fashions? Am I very much in the way, or may I have a word with you, cousin?’
The colour flooded Henrietta’s cheeks; she stammered: ‘Oh no! I mean, to be sure you may, Alan!’
Miss Allerton, unwontedly meek, obeyed the command contained in the jerk of his lordship’s head, and tripped out of the room. The Viscount shut the door, and turned to look across the saloon at his cousin. Her colour rose higher still, and she pretended to search for something in the litter of objects on the table.
‘Henry . . .’ the Viscount said.
She looked up at that, a little shy smile on her lips. ‘Oh, Alan, no one has called me that since you went away! How nice it sounds!’
He returned the smile, although with an effort. ‘Does it? You will always be Henry to me, you know.’ He paused; and then said with a good deal of constraint: ‘I have been with my mother and with Thimbleby for the past hour. What I have learnt from them has made me feel that I must speak to you immediately.’
‘Oh – oh, yes?’ said Henrietta.
‘Yes. I think I was never more shocked in my life than when I realized –’ He broke off, conscious of the awkwardness of his situation. His own colour rose; he said with a rueful laugh: ‘The devil! I’m as tongue-tied as a schoolboy! Henry, I only wanted to say – I’m not going to offer for you!’
