‘To wait on Isabella,’ she replied innocently.
‘Ha!’ uttered his lordship, with a harsh and bitter laugh.
Miss Wantage looked wonderingly up at him. ‘You don’t sound very pleased, Sherry. Would she not see you?’
‘Pleased!’ ejaculated his lordship. ‘Much I have to be pleased about!’
‘I know she wouldn’t receive any of the other gentlemen, though they came all the way from London for the purpose, but I did think she would see you.’
‘Well she did,’ said the Viscount shortly. ‘And for all the good I got by it, I might as well have stayed – Here, who told you I wanted to marry Bella?’
‘You did,’ answered Miss Wantage simply. ‘It was when you came down last year. Don’t you remember?’
‘No, I can’t say that I do, but it don’t signify. She won’t have me.’
‘Sherry!’ cried Miss Wantage, quite shocked. ‘You don’t mean that you have offered, and she has refused you?’
‘Yes, I do. And that’s not all!’ said the Viscount, his wrongs rising forcibly to his mind. ‘She said my character was unsteady, and I’d no delicacy of principle! That, from a girl I’ve known all my life!’
‘It isn’t true!’ Hero said, warmly clasping his hand.
‘I’m a gamester, and a libertine, and she don’t like the company I keep. I’m –’
‘Sherry,’ interrupted Hero anxiously, ‘can she have heard about your opera-dancer, do you think?’
‘Well, upon my word!’ gasped the Viscount. ‘What the devil do you know about my opera-dancer? And don’t say I told you, because that I never did!’
‘No, no, Edwin told me! That is, he told Cassy, because they had a quarrel, and it was really she who told me.’
‘You’ve no business to be talking of such things!’ said his lordship sternly. He thought it over, his brow creasing. ‘Besides, it don’t make sense! Edwin told Cassy, because they had a quarrel? Where’s the sense in that?’
‘Why, Sherry, because he said that before she set her cap at you, she might as well know –’ Miss Wantage broke off, flushing deeply. ‘Oh, IwishI didn’t say things I ought not to!’ she said, much mortified. ‘Truly, I didn’t mean to be such a cat!’
‘Oh!’ said his lordship. ‘So that’s what’s in the wind, is it? As a matter of fact, I knew it,’ he added, momentarily abandoning the grand manner. ‘And you may tell your cousin Cassy, with mycompliments, that she may as well spare herself the trouble, for I haven’t come to that yet! Now, don’t go blurting that out at her the first time you see her again! And stop chattering about my opera-dancer! I’ve a very good mind to go up to the house and have a word with Edwin! Prating about my affairs all round the countryside! Now I know where my damned meddling uncle had it from! Pack of lies!’
‘Haven’t you got an opera-dancer after all?’ asked Miss Wantage. ‘Because if you haven’t, I will tell Isabella so myself, and then perhaps you can be comfortable.’
‘You won’t say anything about it at all!’ said the harassed Viscount.
‘Yes, but Sherry –’
‘No, I tell you! For one thing, a pretty-behaved female don’t mention such subjects; and for another – Well, you wouldn’t understand!’ He encountered an enquiring look from the eyes which met his so frankly, and cast about in his brain for a suitable explanation. ‘Confound you, Hero, there’s nothing in it! Everyone has a fancy-piece or two, but it don’t signify a jot, take my word for it!’
Miss Wantage was perfectly ready to take his word, but she felt that the question had not been thoroughly thrashed out. ‘Well, but, Sherry, perhaps you did not explain it to Isabella quite well? Don’t you think –’
‘No, I don’t,’ said his lordship hastily. ‘The long and the short of it is that Bella don’t care a rap for me.’
Miss Wantage, finding this hard to believe, suggested that poor Isabella must have had the headache.
‘No, it wasn’t that. Not but what she did look a trifle pale, now you put me in mind of it. But Incomparable as ever!’ he added loyally.
‘Sheisvery pretty,’ said Miss Wantage. ‘She even looked pretty when she had spots.’
‘Spots?’ repeated the Viscount, in a stunned voice. ‘She never had a spot in her life!’
‘Well, not ordinary spots, like Sophy, but the ones you have with the measles, I mean.’
‘Isabella didn’t have the measles!’
