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  ‘Too much!’ he returned.

  Jessamy, overcoming by sheer force of will his sudden nausea, had got to his feet again. He was very pale, and he was breathing short and fast, as though he had been running. He fixed his stern eyes on Alverstoke’s face, and jerked out: ‘Lend me your phaeton, sir! I – I beg of you! I won’t drive it – Curry can do so! You have my word I won’t! Sir, you must let me have it!’

  ‘Are you proposing to chase the balloon?’ asked Alverstoke, regarding him in a little amusement.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Jessamy, don’t be so shatterbrained!’ exclaimed Buxted. ‘As though things were not bad enough already! Really, I wonder at you! This is not the moment to indulge in theatrical airdreaming!’

  ‘On the contrary!’ said Alverstoke. ‘It appears to be exactly the moment!’

  ‘Nor is it the moment for frivolous jests!’ retorted Buxted, his colour mounting again.

  ‘Sir!’ Jessamy begged. ‘Will you? will you?’

  Alverstoke shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Jessamy. The balloon is already some miles distant. Yes, I know it can still be seen, but that’s deceptive, believe me. Matters are not as desperate as Buxted would have you think, either: accidents are the exception rather than the rule.’

  ‘But they do occur!’ Jessamy said. ‘And even if all goes well Felix will be nearly dead with cold, and hasn’t any money, or – Sir, you said they would descend as soon as they can do so safely, and if only I can keep it in sight –’

  ‘Moonshine!’ snapped Buxted.

  ‘Could that be done?’ demanded Eliza, of her brother.

  ‘I daresay, but to what avail? It will come to earth long before we could be within reach of it, and however strongly they might be tempted to do so the men won’t abandon Felix. By the time we had found the place of descent – if we ever did, which I think doubtful – Felix would probably be on the way back to London in a hired chaise.’

  ‘You said yourself they would come down in open country, sir! They may be miles from any town! And if – if they don’t land safely – I must go! I tell you I must! Oh, why isn’t Harry here?’ Jessamy said, anguish in his voice.

  Frederica said: ‘Cousin … !’

  He met her eyes, reading the unspoken question in them. He smiled crookedly, shrugged, and said: ‘Very well!’

  The anxious expression melted into one of brimming gratitude. ‘Thank you! I’ve no right to ask it of you, but I should be so grateful – so very grateful!’

  ‘To think that I came here in the expectation of being bored!’ he said. ‘Eliza, I regret that I must now leave you: accept my apologies!’

  ‘Don’t give me a thought!’ she returned. ‘I shall take our cousins home, and Carlton may then drive me back to Alverstoke House.’

  He nodded, and turned to Jessamy. ‘Up with you!’

  His face transformed, Jessamy cried: ‘You’ll go with me yourself? Oh, thank you! Now we shall do!’

  Twenty

  The mood of exaltation was not of long duration. By the time the Stanhope Gate had been reached the various disasters which might threaten Felix had been recollected, and Jessamy became silent, his eyes, an instant earlier full of fiery light, sombre and frowning. As the phaeton approached the gate a smart tilbury came through it, driven by a very ugly man, dressed in the height of fashion, who no sooner clapped eyes on Alverstoke’s grays than he reined in the showy chestnut between the shafts of his own carriage, and called out: ‘Alverstoke! The very man I want!’

  The Marquis had checked his team, but he shook his head. ‘No use, Kangaroo! I haven’t an instant to spare!’

  ‘But I only want – Where the devil are you off to?’ shouted Cooke, slewing round in his seat as the phaeton passed him.

  ‘Chasing a balloon!’ Alverstoke threw over his shoulder.

  ‘Why did you say that?’ demanded Jessamy. ‘He will think you’ve run mad!’

  ‘Very likely! And it will be no more than the truth!’

  There was a moment’s silence; then Jessamy said, in a voice of resolute calm: ‘Do you mean, sir, that this is a wild goose chase?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Alverstoke, catching the note of anxiety, and relenting. ‘We may be behind the fair, but I’ve never yet been out-jockeyed!’

  Silence reigned for another half-mile. Jessamy broke it, saying violently: ‘He deserves to be flayed! And if we find him safe I will, too!’

  ‘Not if I have anything to say in the matter!’ replied the Marquis. ‘The thought of flaying him has been sustaining me for the past hour, and not even Harry shall rob me of that pleasure.’

  That drew a laugh from Jessamy, but he said, after a moment: ‘You had better flay me. It was my fault – all my fault!’

  ‘I was wondering how long it would be before you contrived to convince yourself that you were to blame,’ said Alverstoke caustically, ‘I haven’t the slightest wish to know how you arrived at such an addlebrained conclusion, so don’t put yourself to the trouble of telling me! If blame rests on any shoulders but Felix’s, it rests on mine! He was in my charge, not yours, I would remind you.’

  Jessamy shook his head. ‘I ought never to have left him in the enclosure. I know what he is, sir!’

  ‘Oh? You suspected, in fact, that he would risk his life in an attempt to take part in this flight?’

  ‘No. Good God, no! I never dreamed – But I did think I ought to keep an eye on him, perhaps, and – and if I hadn’t let Cousin Buxted hackle me I – I think I should have done so,’ Jessamy confessed, staring rigidly ahead. ‘My curst temper! Jealousy, self-importance, getting up in the boughs, only because my cousin took it upon himself to tell Felix to come away! And he was right!’ He buried his face in his hands, and said in a stifled voice: ‘I shall never be fit, never!’

  ‘Not, I agree, until you have got the better of your tendency to fall into distempered freaks,’ said Alverstoke unemotionally. He allowed Jessamy a moment or two to digest this blighting remark, before adding, with far more encouragement: ‘I’ve no doubt that you’ll succeed. I won’t insult you by calling you a little boy, but you are not very old yet, you know!’

  Dropping his hands, Jessamy managed to smile. ‘Yes, sir. I – I know. One should have fortitude of mind – not allow oneself to be overpowered, or to – to magnify even one’s own sins, because that’s a form of self-indulgence – don’t you think?’

  ‘Possibly. It is not one in which I’ve so far indulged,’ replied his lordship dryly.

  ‘Frederica doesn’t either. Or read curtain lectures! And she is the best person I know!’ He added, with unexpected naïveté: ‘I daresay that seems an odd thing to say of one’s sister, but it’s true, and I’m not ashamed to say so! She may not be a beauty, like Charis, but she’s – she’s –’

  ‘Worth a dozen of Charis!’ supplied his lordship.

  ‘Yes, by Jupiter, she is!’ said Jessamy, his eyes kindling.

  He relapsed after that into silence, which he broke only to return monosyllabic answers to such remarks as Alverstoke addressed to him; to ask him, once, at what speed he judged the balloon to be travelling; and once to say, in a burst of confidence: ‘It was wrong of him – very wrong, but you can’t deny he’s pluck to the backbone, sir!’

  ‘Oh, yes! Full of foolhardiness and ignorance.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose – But I couldn’t have done it!’

  ‘Thank God for that!’

  ‘I shouldn’t have had enough spunk,’ said Jessamy, making a clean breast of it.

  ‘It’s to be hoped that you have more sense!’ said Alverstoke, with asperity. ‘If, at your age, you did anything only half as hare-brained, the only place for you would be Bedlam!’

  ‘Yes – if I did it! The thing is that one can’t help feeling mortified when one’s young brother does something one knows one wouldn’t have the spunk to do oneself!’

  This betrayal of boyishness made Alverstoke laugh, but he would not tell Jessamy why, recommending him instead to keep his eyes o