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  After such a callous piece of flippancy as this, it was only to be expected that when Amanda accompanied her protector downstairs to the coffee-room she should do so with all the air of a Christian martyr.

  The landlord had been profuse in apologies for his inability to offer Sir Gareth a private parlour. The only one the White Lion possessed was occupied already by an elderly gentleman afflicted with gout, and although the landlord plainly considered Sir Gareth more worthy of it, he doubted whether the gouty gentleman would share this view.

  But Sir Gareth, in spite of having thrown a judicious damper over Amanda’s sudden access of maidenly modesty, was a great deal more aware of the perils of her situation than she, and he had no desire to add to the irregularity of this journey by dining with her in a private parlour. The landlord, relieved to find him so accommodating, assured him that every attention would be paid to his comfort, and added that since the only other visitor to the inn was one very quiet young gentleman he need not fear that his ward would be exposed to noisy company.

  The coffee-room was a pleasant, low-pitched apartment, furnished with one long table, a quantity of chairs, and a massive sideboard. The window-embrasure was filled by a cushioned seat, and this, when Sir Gareth and Amanda entered the room, was occupied by the quiet young gentleman, who was reading a book in the fading daylight. He did not raise his eyes from this immediately, but upon Sir Gareth’s desiring the waiter to bring him a glass of sherry, he looked up, and, his gaze falling upon Amanda, became apparently transfixed.

  ‘And some lemonade for the lady,’ added Sir Gareth unthinkingly.

  He was speedily brought to realize that he had been guilty of gross folly. Amanda might be forced to acknowledge him as her guardian, but she was not going to submit to such arbitrary treatment as this. ‘Thank you, I don’t care for lemonade,’ she said. ‘I will take a glass of sherry.’

  Sir Gareth’s lips twitched. He met the waiter’s understanding eye, and said briefly: ‘Ratafia.’

  Amanda, having by this time discovered the presence of the quiet young gentleman, thought it prudent to refrain from further argument, and relapsed into dejection. The quiet young gentleman, his book forgotten, continued to gaze at her exquisite profile, in his own face an expression of awed admiration.

  Sir Gareth, already aware of his presence, was thus afforded the opportunity to study him at leisure. He would not ordinarily have felt it necessary to pay much heed to a chance-met traveller, but his short acquaintance with Amanda had taught him that that disastrously confiding damsel would not hesitate to turn any promising stranger to good account.

  But what he saw satisfied him. The quiet young gentleman, whom he judged to be perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age, was a slender youth, with a damask cheek, a sensitive mouth, and a pair of rather dreamy gray eyes. He was attired in a riding-dress whose cut, without aspiring to the heights achieved by Weston, or Schultz, or Schweitzer and Davidson, advertised the skill of a reliable provincial tailor. Tentative ambition was betrayed by a waistcoat of such bold design as might be relied upon to appeal to the taste of Oxford or Cambridge collegiates; and the intricate, if not entirely felicitous, arrangement of his neckcloth exactly resembled the efforts of Mr Leigh Wetherby to copy the various styles affected by his Corinthian uncle.

  As though conscious of Sir Gareth’s scrutiny, he withdrew his rapt gaze from Amanda, and glanced towards him, blushing slightly as he realized that he had been under observation. Sir Gareth smiled at him, and addressed some commonplace to him. He replied with a little stammer of shyness, but in a cultured voice which confirmed Sir Gareth’s estimate of his condition. An agreeable, well-mannered boy, of good-breeding but little worldly experience, decided Sir Gareth. Too young to appear to Amanda in the light of a potential rescuer, but he might serve to make her forget her injuries, he thought. In any event, since he would shortly be sitting down to table with them, he could not be ignored.

  Within a very few minutes, the young gentleman, his reading abandoned, had joined his fellow-guests beside the empty fireplace in the middle of the room, and was chatting easily with his new acquaintance. Sir Gareth had seemed to him at first rather awe-inspiring, clearly a man of fashion, possibly (if his highly polished top-boots were anything to go by) a top-sawyer, but he soon found that he was not at all proud, but, on the contrary, very affable and encouraging. Long before the covers were set on the table, the young gentleman had disclosed that his name was Hildebrand Ross, and that his home was in Suffolk, where, Sir Gareth gathered, his father was the squire of a village not far from Stowmarket. He had got his schooling at Winchester, and was at present up at Cambridge. He had several sisters, all older than himself, but no brothers; and it was not difficult to guess that he was at once the hope and the darling of his house. He told Sir Gareth that he was on his way to Ludlow, where he expected to join a party of college friends on a walking tour of Wales. His intention had been to have spent the night at Wellingborough, but he had been attracted to the White Lion by its air of antiquity: did not Sir Gareth think that in all likelihood the inn had been standing here, just as it did today, when Queen Katherine had been imprisoned at Kimbolton?

  This question could not fail to catch Amanda’s attention, and she temporarily abandoned her rôle of martyred innocence to demand further information. Delighted as much to expound what appeared to be a favourite subject as to converse with the most stunningly beautiful creature he had ever beheld, Mr Ross turned eagerly towards her. Sir Gareth, thankful, at the end of a wearing day, to be relieved of the necessity of entertaining his charge, retired from the conversation, enjoying his sherry in peace, and listening, in a little amusement, to Mr Ross’s earnest discourse.

  Mr Ross seemed to be a romantically minded youth, with a strong liking for historic subjects. He thought that there was promising matter for a dramatic tragedy, in blank verse, in the Divorce and Death of Queen Katherine of Aragon. Only, did Amanda feel that it would be presumptuous for a lesser poet to tread in the steps of Shakespeare? Yes (blushing), his ambition was to enter the field of literature. As a matter of a fact, he had written a quantity of verse already. Oh, no! not published! just fugitive fragments written when he was quite young, which he would be ashamed to see in print. He rather thought that his talent was for Drama: at least (blushing more fierily), so one or two knowledgeable persons had been kind enough to say. To own the truth, he had already written a short play, while still at Winchester, which had been performed by certain members of the Sixth. Mere schoolboy stuff, of course, but one of the situations had been considered powerful, and he fancied that there were several passages that were not wholly contemptible. But he must sound like a coxcomb!

  Reassured on this point, he confided that he had for long nursed an ambition to write a Tragic Drama about Queen Katherine, but had hitherto put the project from him, fearing that until he had gained experience and knowledge of the world he might not do justice to his subject. The moment now seemed ripe; and the sight of Kimbolton, where, as Amanda was of course aware, the unfortunate queen had died, had put one or two very good notions into his head.

  Amanda, who had never before met an author, much less a dramatic poet, was impressed. She begged Mr Ross to tell her more; and Mr Ross, stammering with mingled shyness and gratification, said that if she was sure she would not think him the greatest bore in nature, he would very much value her opinion of his play, as he at present conceived it.

  Sir Gareth, lounging in a deep chair at his ease, with his shapely and superbly booted legs crossed at the ankles, watched them with a smile lurking at the back of his eyes. An attractive pair of children: the boy a little shy, and obviously dazzled, the girl quite free from any sort of self-consciousness, and pretty enough to turn far more seasoned heads than young Ross’s. She was having much the same effect upon him as she had had upon Joe Ninfield, but she couldn’t do much damage to his heart in one evening. As for the budding