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  But when Lord Wrotham presented himself, towards the end of dinner, he was seen to be in knee-breeches, a circumstance which made Sherry exclaim: ‘Good God, we’re not going to a ball, old fellow! What the deuce are you about? Knee-breeches for Cribb’s Parlour!’

  ‘Cribb’s Parlour?’ repeated George, shaking hands with Hero. ‘But I thought we were to go to Almack’s!’

  ‘Oh!’ Hero cried, in a little confusion.‘I had quite forgot that you said you would go with us! Indeed, I am very sorry, George, and I cannot think how I came to be so stupid!’

  ‘Well, it’s of no account,’ said Sherry, pouring a glass of wine for his friend.‘Hero don’t care to go to the Assembly, and I have made up a snug little party to meet at Cribb’s Parlour.’

  Lord Wrotham looked enquiringly at Hero. The significance of her ball-dress was not lost on him; he said: ‘Is this so indeed? Are you sure you do not care to go?’

  ‘No, truly I had as lief stay at home,’ she assured him. ‘I have the headache, you know, and Sherry thinks I should very likely find it quite flat.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Wrotham, frowning over it. He glanced from one to the other, and said that he supposed he had best return home to change into raiment more suited to Cribb’s Parlour. This, however, Sherry would not permit him to do, saying that they were late already, and must be on their way. He gave Hero a careless pat on the shoulder, recommended her to go early to bed, and swept his friend off with him to Mr Ringwood’s lodging. Here they took up Mr Ringwood into their hackney, and all drove off to the tavern owned by the ex-champion of the Ring. Lord Wrotham’s doubts were still troubling him, and when Mr Ringwood expressed surprise at Sherry’s having selected one of the Assembly nights for this meeting, he said abruptly: ‘She did not look to me as though she had the headache.’

  ‘Lord, how do you know?’ responded Sherry. ‘She did not wish to go to Almack’s, I tell you! She said so herself. I told her I would go if she had set her heart on it, and she replied at once that she would be glad not to be obliged to go.’ He added naïvely:‘I must say I was deuced happy to hear it, for it is not in my line at all.’

  The hackney stopping in Jermyn Street at this moment, to take up Sir Montagu Revesby, the subject was allowed to drop, and the rest of the journey was beguiled in discussing the rival merits of two promising young heavyweights, now in training for an early encounter. Lord Wrotham bore little part in this, but sat lost in a fit of brooding which outlasted his first glass of daffy at the Parlour. He was just about to embark on a second glass when he came to a sudden decision, and startled his friends by saying in accents of strong conviction: ‘She did want to go!’

  Mr Ringwood eyed him with some misgiving. ‘Go where?’ he asked.

  ‘Almack’s, of course!’Wrotham said impatiently.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Kitten – Lady Sherry!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Sherry. ‘What a fellow you are, George! Once put a notion into your head, and, damme, there’s no getting it out again! Fill up his glass, Monty!’

  ‘No!’ said George. ‘I tell you she was dressed for it. I’d lay a monkey it was all your doing, Sherry! I shall return to Half Moon Street and offer to be her escort!’

  ‘But I keep on telling you she did not wish to go!’ Sherry said, quite tired of the subject.

  ‘Well, I think she did. And, damme, I never wanted to come here, now I think of it! I’m going back.’

  The Viscount shrugged, casting an expressive glance at Mr Ringwood, and Lord Wrotham took his impetuous departure. He had not appeared to be in a convivial mood, but his going threw an unaccountable damper over the party. The Viscount’s countenance wore something very like a scowl, and he drank off his second glass of daffy rather defiantly. Upon some acquaintances coming up to exchange salutations and bets, he roused himself from his abstraction and entered pretty readily into the transactions. But when these friends moved away, he sat down again at his table, looking moody, and drinking his third glass in unbroken silence. An attempt by Mr Ringwood to rouse him failed; and a rallying jest from Revesby only drew a perfunctory smile from him. The third glass seemed to help him to come to a decision. He set it down empty upon the bare table and suddenly demanded: ‘What right has George Wrotham to take my wife to Almack’s?’

  Mr Ringwood considered this carefully.‘Don’t see any harm in it,’ he pronounced at last. ‘Quite the thing.’

  ‘Well, I won’t have it!’ said his lordship belligerently.

  ‘My dear Sherry, let me call for another glass!’ smiled Revesby.

  His lordship ignored this. ‘He comes here, don’t say a word, hardly blows a cloud, and then what does he do? Without so much as a by your leave, too!’

  ‘Don’t see that,’ objected Mr Ringwood, shaking his head. ‘Told you what he was going to do, didn’t he? If you didn’t like it, ought to have told him so. Too late now. Call for another glass!’

  ‘I don’t want another glass, and I won’t have George taking my wife off under my very nose!’

  ‘Sherry, Sherry!’ Sir Montagu remonstrated, laying a hand on the Viscount’s arm.

  It was shaken off. ‘Don’t keep saying Sherry at me!’ said his lordship irritably. ‘If she wanted to go to the damned Assembly, why the devil did she say she didn’t? Tell me that!’

  ‘I am sure she did not wish to go, and she will send Wrotham about his business,’ Revesby said soothingly.

  Mr Ringwood, rendered percipient by a judicious quantity of gin, said wisely: ‘Wouldn’t say she wished to go if you didn’t, Sherry. Noticed it often. Always does what you wish. Mistake, if you ask me.’ He recruited himself with another pull at his glass. ‘Selfish!’ he produced.

  ‘Who is?’ demanded his lordship.

  ‘You are,’ said Mr Ringwood simply.

  ‘I am no such thing!’ Sherry retorted, stung. ‘How the devil was I to know she wanted to go when she said she didn’t?’

  ‘My dear Sherry, poor Ringwood is a trifle disguised! Why put yourself in a pucker?’ Revesby said.

  ‘No, I ain’t!’ Mr Ringwood contradicted, eyeing the elegant Sir Montagu with dislike. ‘Sherry’s a fool. Always was. George knew she wanted to go. George ain’t a fool.’ He thought this over. ‘At least, not as big a fool as Sherry,’ he amended.

  ‘You’re as full as you can hold!’ said Sherry furiously. ‘And George had no right to walk off like that! What’s more, he shan’t take my wife to Almack’s, because I’ll take her myself !’

  Revesby caught his sleeve as he sprang up. ‘No, no, my dear fellow, you’re too late now! Consider! George has been gone these twenty minutes, and more!’

  ‘I shall go straight to Almack’s and give him a set-down!’ promised Sherry, a martial light in his eye.

  Mr Ringwood sat up. ‘You’re not going to call George out, Sherry! Mind, now!’

  ‘Who said anything about calling him out? Merely, if my wife goes to Almack’s, I’m going to Almack’s too!’

  ‘Really, Sherry, you are making a great to-do about nothing,’ said Revesby gently. ‘There is no impropriety in Wrotham’s escorting Lady Sheringham, I assure you!’

  ‘Are you accusing my wife of impropriety?’ said Sherry, whose pugnacity was fast reaching alarming proportions.

  ‘Certainly not!’ replied Revesby. ‘Such a notion never entered my head, my dear boy! I wish you will sit down and forget these crotchets.’

  ‘Well, I won’t!’ Sherry returned.‘I’m going to Almack’s.’

  Mr Ringwood groped for his quizzing-glass, and through it scrutinised his friend’s person. He let it fall again and lay back in his chair.‘Not in pantaloons,’ he said.‘Can’t be done, Sherry.’

  The Viscount looked very much put out for a moment, but having taken a resolve he was not one easily to relinquish it. He said, with immense dignity, that he was going off home to change his dress, and stalked out of the Parlour before either Revesby or Ringwood could think of an answer.

  When he reached