"Yes," she said at length, but without looking at me. "You've done marvellously well."

"In the only language one can love in," I said bitterly.

The words had no apparent effect. She still stared at her twinkling feet.

Suddenly she lifted her eyes up to mine and said, almost sharply, "Then what did happen to you between the Hanyards and Leek to change you?"

It was clean, swift hitting, and made me gasp, but I managed to escape.

"Madam," said I, "I set out with you from the Hanyards to serve you and for no other purpose whatsoever. In my opinion, speaking in all modesty, I served you as well after Leek as before it. At least, I tried to."

She leaped up, and, with great sweeps of her arm, flung the cushions into the library. She said briefly, "And you succeeded, sir!" Then she left me.

swiftly and pa.s.sionately, without another word or look.

After this, the gap between us became obvious.

Meanwhile the Marquess of Tiverton was doing his best to give me a competent knowledge of the Court-end of the town. He had a s.p.a.cious mansion in Bloomsbury Square, but this was now let to a great nabob, and he himself lived in close-shorn splendour in a small house in St. James's.

Here I saw much of him, for commonly I would stroll round late in the forenoon and rout him out of bed. By an odd turn we took to each other greatly, and while he drank chocolate in bed or trifled with his breakfast we had many talks on the few subjects that mattered to him.

Our favourite theme was Margaret, whom he outspokenly worshipped. He rhapsodized over her in great stretches, calling me to testify with him to her divineness, and rating me soundly if, in the bitterness of my heart, I was a little laggard in my devotions. And, at irregular intervals, like Selah in the Psalms, he would intone dolefully, "And I can't marry her!"

It was no use my protesting that an unmarried man could marry any woman he liked if she would have him.

"A man can," he would reply, "but a bankrupt marquess can't. I've got to marry that jade. Pah! She's as lank as a hop-pole and as yellow as a guinea. But what's a marquess to do, Noll? They say she could tie up the neck and armholes of her shift and fill it with diamonds. d.a.m.n her! I wish Brocton would snap her up, but he can't. He'll never be more than an earl and I'm a marquess. Curse my luck! Fancy me a marquess! I'm a disgrace to my order and as poor as a crow."

The 'jade' referred to was the nabob's only daughter and heiress, who was, as all the town knew, to make a great match. My Lord Brocton was keenly in pursuit of her, but she inclined to the Marquess, who could have had her and her vast fortune any day for the asking. She was certainly not overdone with charms, but Tiverton in his anger had made her out worse than she was.

The morning after my encounter with Margaret in the recess, Tiverton was more than usually talkative, the fact being not unconnected, I imagine, with an unsuccessful bout at White's the night previous. We got through our usual talk about Margaret and the nabobess, and then he struck out a new line.

"Now if the divine Margaret," he said, "rightly so named as the pearl of great price among women, were only Freake's daughter and heiress, I'd be on my knees before her in a jiffy. They say he made cartfuls of money over that Jacobite business. Everybody here was selling at any price the stocks would fetch, and he was buying right and left on his own terms. He was back here, knowing of the retreat from Derby, over twenty-four hours before the courier came, and the old fox kept the news to himself. He's the first man out of the city to set up house in the Court-end. Old Borrowdell shifted his tabernacle as far west as Hatton Gardens in my father's time, and that was thought pretty big and bold, but here's Freake right in the thick of it, and holds his own like a lion among jackals.

Fact is, he's a right-down good fellow. Being a marquess, I ought to despise him, 'stead of which I feel like a worm whenever he comes near me, and that, mark ye, Noll, not because I owe him close on ten thousand. I used to owe a rascal named Blayton quite as much, and every time he came whining round here I either wanted to kick him out or did it. Heigh-ho!

I'm in the very devil of a mess but I'll cheat scraggy-neck yet. I'll reform outright, Noll. I'll never touch a card again as long as I live."

"That's the talk!" said I heartily. "Eat something and let's have the horses out for a gallop across Putney Heath."

Next evening, early, being very miserable, I went round to the Blounts, with whom I was very friendly. I forgot myself for a time, it being impossible to think of anything while lying on my back on the hearth, with baby Blount trying to pull my hair out by the roots and cutting a stubborn tooth on my nose. He was a delightful, pitiless, young rascal and would leave anything and anybody to maul me about.

I had, however, for once mistaken my billet, for while thus engaged who should come in with his mother but Margaret?

"Aren't you afraid to trust baby with such an inexperienced nurse?" asked Margaret, smiling at my discomfiture, for I had to lie there till I was rescued from the young dog's clutches.

"Not at all. When he's with a baby, he becomes a baby, which is what they want. He'll make an ideal father, don't you think?" said her ladyship happily.

"I think he will," said Margaret in a very judicial tone, but she coloured as she said it.

While Lady Blount disposed of baby, Margaret beckoned me aside. "Oliver, you'll do me a favour, won't you?" she asked.

"Certainly," said I.

"As I came here in a chair, I saw the Marquess going into White's. I fear he may be gambling again. He easily yields to the temptation, and soon becomes reckless. Will you call in, as if by chance, and coax him out? I would have him saved from himself, and you have great influence over him."

"If he won't come out," said I, smiling, "I'll lug him out!"

I excused myself to Lady Blount and set forth on my errand, willingly enough, since she desired it and I liked him, but all the way I thought of her anxious face as she asked me.

At White's I found Tiverton playing piquet with Brocton. A heap of guineas was by his side, and he was flushed and excited with success. The bout had attracted some attention, for the stakes were running high, and eight or nine men were gathered round the players, among them Sir Patrick Gee. I waited while the hand was played out. Tiverton repiqued his opponent, and joyously raked over to his side of the table four tall piles of guineas.

It was my first meeting with Brocton. Chance and Margaret had brought us together again.

"Egad, Tiverton," said I to the Marquess, who now first observed me, "you had the cards that time with a vengeance. Are you playing on? What about your engagement with me?"

The Marquess coloured slightly at my veiled rebuke. He looked doubtfully at his watch, then at me, and finally at Brocton.

"Have you had enough?" he asked.

"Enough?" cried Brocton. "Since you took up with farmers you've got chicken-hearted at cards. Play on, my lord!"

"I have told you," said I quietly to Brocton, "that his lordship has an engagement with me. That should be enough. If you want your revenge, which is natural, there are other nights available."

"I want my revenge now, and will have it," he said meaningly, "and this is how I serve men who come between me and my revenge." He was shuffling a pack of cards as he spoke, and, with the words, he flung them in my face.

At most of the tables play stopped, and the players there became silently intent on this new game where the stakes ran highest of all. It meant a fight, a fight between an expert swordsman and a man who knew nothing of the craft. To such a fight there could be but one end.

Tiverton was beside himself. "She'll never forgive me!" he muttered, and I looked amusedly at him and whispered, "Who? The nabobess?"

He was the highest in rank there, and as such a court of appeal and a sort of master of the ceremonies.

"My Lord Tiverton," said I aloud, "I am, as you know, a recent arrival in town from the Americas and other outlandish places, and, naturally enough under these circ.u.mstances, I am not clear on some points."

"It's clear you've been swiped across the face," broke in Sir Patrick Gee.

"Hold your tongue, sir!" said Tiverton, looking quietly at him. "Proceed, Mr. Wheatman!"

It made me smile again, tight as the corner was, to see the play-acting spirit creeping over him. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

"Therefore, my lord, I should like to ask you a few questions," I continued.

"Certainly, sir," he replied, with great impressiveness, taking snuff in great style while he awaited my questioning.

"Is there any doubt that I am the insulted person?"

"None whatever," he replied. "My Lord Brocton insulted you wantonly and deliberately."

"Then, my lord Marquess, I may be wrong, but I think I have the right of choosing the place, the time, and the weapons."

"Certainly, Mr. Wheatman," he answered.

"Then if I choose to say, 'On the banks of the Susquehanna, ten years hence, with tomahawks,' so it must be?"