‘Well, I will,’ promised Hero, sitting down on the sofa, and patting the place beside her invitingly. ‘But what has occurred to put you in such spirits? Isabella has not – oh, George, she has not accepted you?’
‘No,’ he said, the sparkle dying out of his expressive eyes. ‘No, not that, but – Look, Kitten!’
He thrust a hand into his pocket as he spoke, and drew out a small package. This he reverently unwrapped, disclosing a dejected pink rose, which was fast reaching the stage of decomposition.
Hero opened her eyes very wide as she stared at this relic, and then, glancing enquiringly up at George, said in an awed tone: ‘Did she give it to you, George?’
He nodded, his emotions for the moment making it impossible for him to speak. When he had cleared his throat, he said: ‘She was wearing a posy of them, pinned to her dress, last night. This one fell into her lap, and Severn –’ he ground his teeth at the recollection – ‘Severn had the temerity to demand it of her! As though he had but to ask, and she must submit to his wishes! I was within an ace of calling him to account, I can tell you! I must have done so, had not Miss Milborne given him such a let-down as – Kitten, she held it out to me, and said with the kindest smile, the most speaking expression in those glorious eyes, that I should have her rose, if I cared to take it! If I cared to! I slept with it beneath my pillow, and I shall carry it next my heart until I die!’ He looked imploringly at Hero, and said with an effort: ‘She could not have done so had she not felt a preference – could she?’
‘Oh no, indeed she could not!’ Hero cried. ‘It must be certain! It is the most touching thing I ever heard! Oh, Sherry, is that you? Do, pray, come in, and see what Isabella has bestowed upon dear George!’
‘Hallo, George!’ said the Viscount, strolling across the room. ‘My God, Kitten, what a scrape you put me into just now!’
She gave an involuntary giggle. ‘I know. And if you could but have seen your own face! But never mind that now! Only look!’
The Viscount eyed the rose disparagingly. ‘Where’s the sense in keeping that?’ he asked. ‘It’s dead. I see nothing at all wonderful in it.’
‘But, Sherry, you do not understand! Isabella gave it to George last night!’
‘Did she, by God?’ said Sherry incorrigibly. ‘Lord, what a flirt the girl is!’
Lord Wrotham sprang to his feet, quick rage kindling in his breast. Hero, well accustomed by this time to his starts, shrieked: ‘George, if you call Sherry out, I won’t invite Isabella to go with us!’
His lordship paused, clenching his fists. ‘Sherry!’ he said menacingly, ‘unsay those words!’
‘Damned if I will,’ responded Sherry. ‘You can’t call me out in my own house. Devilish badton! Besides, of course the Incomparable is a flirt! Nothing in that! I’d lay a monkey she did it to make Severn jealous. Don’t tell me he wasn’t there! You can’t humbug me, my boy!’
‘If I thought that –!’ said George, thrusting back the lock of hair from his brow.
‘She would not be so cruel!’ said Hero indignantly. ‘Don’t heed him, George!’
‘If I thought it,’ George said, ‘if I believed that she was trifling with me so heartlessly, I would – I would grind the rose under my heel!’
‘No need to make a damned mess on our new carpet,’ said Sherry. ‘Throw it out of the window.’
‘Sherry, I don’t know how you can be so unfeeling!’ Hero said reproachfully.
‘Well, dash it, whatishe to do with it?’ asked Sherry. ‘A fellow can’t carry a lot of withered rose-leaves about in his pocket! Just look at the thing already!’
George appeared to be a little daunted by this point of view. ‘I suppose it will fall to pieces,’ he said disconsolately.
‘No, no, there is not the least need!’ Hero assured him. ‘You must press it between the leaves of a book, and then it will keepits shape. Sherry, George desires us to go with him to witness a balloon ascension! We are to take Isabella along with us, if she cares to come. You will like to go, will you not?’
‘What, to watch a curst balloon go up?’ exclaimed Sherry. ‘No, I wouldn’t!’
‘But, Sherry, if you will not accompany us I do not know how we are to contrive!’
‘Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll make such a cake of myself! If George wants to look like a Johnny Raw he may do so, but he ain’t going to drag me into it!’
Hero was about to argue the point when she suddenly recollected that Sherry too had been one of the Incomparable’s suitors. She thought that perhaps he was trying to mask a natural disinclination to spend a whole afternoon in the company of the unattainable, and tactfully forbore to press him any farther. She suggested to George that they should invite Mr Fakenham to make a fourth in their party. George agreed to this, but when he had had a moment in which to think it over he remembered that Ferdy also formed one of Miss Milborne’s court, and he said that he fancied balloons were not much in Ferdy’s line, and would instead bring his friend, Algernon Gumley, to share in the treat. The Viscount let out a most unseemly crack of laughter at this, but refused to explain why. George informed Hero, a trifle stiffly, that she would find Mr Gumley a very good-humoured fellow, and took himself off, carefully carrying his rose with him.
Hero sat down at the writing-table to compose a suitable note to Isabella. Sherry said: ‘What a fellow George is! Dead roses and balloon ascensions! You wouldn’t think it, but he used to be as game a man as you would meet in a twelve-month before he clapped eyes on Isabella. I’ll swear she means to have Severn, too – if she can get him! They’re laying bets against it at the clubs, you know.’
‘Oh, Sherry!’ Hero said, turning round to look at him. ‘She could not be so heartless as to bestow a flower upon him if her affections were not seriously engaged!’
‘Much you know about it!’ he responded. ‘Why, she’s the most heartless girl I ever met in my life! Look at the way she treated me!’
‘Yes,’ Hero said, hanging down her head a little. ‘She was very unkind to you, of course. I am sorry I teased you to go with us this afternoon. I forgot that it must give you pain.’
