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  ‘Pray calm yourself, Fanny; I am about to relieve you of my presence. You will no doubt be glad to learn that I am leaving London to-night.’

  Lady Fanny eyed him in considerable trepidation. ‘Oh indeed, Justin? May I ask where you propose going?’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied his grace blandly. ‘But surely you have guessed?’

  Lady Fanny stammered: ‘No – yes – pray, how should I guess? Where are you going?’

  His grace moved towards the door. His eyes mocked her. ‘But to Cousin Harriet, my dear. Where else should I go?’ He bowed, while she stared at him in mingled horror and suspicion, and before she had time to collect her wits, the door had closed behind him.

  Twelve

  When Miss Marling heard that her dearest Mary was intending to become a governess she had the wit to keep her dismay to herself. It did not take the lively damsel long to discover the whole state of Mary’s mind, and having discovered it she became instantly resolved on Miss Challoner’s marriage to the Marquis. She lent a kind but disbelieving ear to Mary’s steadfast disavowal of the tender passion, and when asked to aid her friend in the search for a genteel family, said frankly that she knew of none. Mary, with only a few borrowed guineas in her pocket, found that she was as much in Vidal’s power as she had ever been, and since she feared that to take Tante Elisabeth into her confidence would lead only to her instant expulsion from the house, she threw herself on Juliana’s mercy, and begged her to save her from Vidal. To be cast to the street in a foreign city was a fate from which even the redoubtable Miss Challoner shrank. She had a feeling that she was fighting in the last ditch, and when her appeal to Juliana was unavailing, there seemed to be no hope left of holding his lordship at arm’s length.

  Juliana, with a worldly wisdom learned no doubt from her mamma, pointed out the advantages of the match. She had no doubt, she said, that Vidal would make an odious husband, but Mary would be amazingly stupid not to take him, for more than half the dowagers in London wanted him for their own daughters.

  Mary said unhappily: ‘I’ve begged you – I’ve prayed you to help me escape from this net. Do you care for me so little?’

  ‘I love you so much I’m quite delighted to think you are to be my cousin,’ responded Miss Marling. She embraced Mary warmly. ‘Truly, my dear, I daren’t smuggle you out of the way. I’ve promised Vidal I won’t, and even if I did he would find you in a trice. What shall you wear at the ball to-night?’

  ‘I don’t go,’ Mary said in a flat voice.

  ‘Good gracious, Mary, why not?’

  ‘I am in your cousin’s house under false pretences,’ Mary said bitterly, ‘she would not take me to these parties if she knew the truth.’

  ‘Well, she don’t know it,’ replied Juliana. ‘Do come, my dear: Vidal will be there.’

  ‘I have no desire to meet his lordship,’ said Mary, and would say no more.

  Mme. de Charbonne, the most easy-going of dames, made no more objection to Mary’s remaining at home than she had made to her sudden arrival two days before. Mary had told her, in desperation, that she was under the necessity of earning a living for herself, and it was plain that madame – who upon hearing this news had regarded her young guest as a kind of rara avis – considered that balls must certainly be out of place for indigent young females. Upon being asked if she could recommend Miss Challoner to a suitable family she had said vaguely that she would bear it in mind, which did not sound particularly hopeful.

  Having seen Juliana arrayed for her party in a rose-pink taffeta gown trimmed with chenille silver and spread over immense elbow-hoops; her hair dressed in her favourite Gorgonne style by no less a personage than M. le Gros himself; her person scented with cassia, Miss Challoner bade her farewell and prepared to spend a quiet evening in one of the smaller salons. She intended to apply herself seriously to the problem of escape, but in this she was frustrated by the appearance, not half an hour after Madame de Charbonne’s and Juliana’s departure, of Mr Frederick Comyn.

  She had already met Mr Comyn once since their unfortunate encounter at Dieppe, and she supposed that he was apprised of her situation. His manner was extremely respectful, and she thought that she could detect a certain grave sympathy in his gaze.

  When the lackey ushered him into the salon she rose, and curtsied to him, and perceived as she did so that his firm mouth was rather tightly compressed. He bowed to her, and said, more as a statement than a question: ‘You are alone, ma’am.’

  ‘Why yes,’ she answered. ‘Were you not informed at the door, sir, that Miss – that Madame is gone out to-night?’

  Mr Comyn said with a touch of gloom: ‘Your first premise was correct, ma’am. It is not Madame de Charbonne that I came hoping to see, but Miss Marling. I was indeed informed that she was gone out, but I ventured to inquire for yourself, ma’am, believing that you would be able to oblige me by divulging Miss Marling’s present whereabouts.’

  Miss Challoner begged him to be seated. She had a shrewd notion that all was not entirely well between Miss Marling and her swain. Certain veiled remarks and flighty head-tossings on the part of Juliana had induced her to suppose that Mr Comyn had somehow affronted his lady. She now perceived that Mr Comyn wore the air of a man goaded beyond the limits of forbearance. She would have liked to give him some good advice on the proper way of treating Miss Marling, but feeling that their intimacy was not far enough advanced to permit of this, she merely replied: ‘Certainly, sir. Miss Marling is gone to a ball at the house of – I think – Madame de Saint-Vire.’

  She instantly realised from his expression that her frankness was ill-timed. A crease appeared between his brows; there was a distinct grimness in his face, which Miss Challoner privately thought became him rather well. ‘Indeed, ma’am?’ he said levelly. ‘It is as I suspected, then. I’m obliged to you.’

  He seemed to be on the point of departure, but Miss Challoner ventured to stay him. ‘Your pardon, Mr Comyn, but I think you are put out?’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Not at all, ma’am. I apprehend that I am merely unaccustomed to the manners obtaining in the Polite World.’

  ‘Will you not take me a little way into your confidence, sir?’ Mary said gently. ‘Juliana is my friend, and I believe I may say I do in part understand her. If I could be of assistance to you – but I do not wish to appear vulgarly intrusive.’

  Mr Comyn hesitated, but the kindness in Miss Challoner’s face induced him to come back into the room, and sit down on a chair beside her. ‘You are very good, ma’am. I believe it is not unknown to you that there exists between Miss Marling and myself a contract to wed, which, though unhappily a secret from the world, I at least have regarded as binding.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I know, and I wish you very happy,’ said Mary.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. Before I set foot in this town – a circumstance I am fast coming to regret – I should have received your extremely obliging good wishes with a gratitude unalloyed by misgiving. Now –’ He stopped, and Miss Challoner watched the meticulous gentleman merge into an angry and scowling young man. ‘I can only suppose, ma’am, that Miss Marling has, upon reflection, perceived the force of her parent’s arguments, and decided to bestow her hand elsewhere.’

  ‘No, sir, that I am sure she has not,’ Mary said.

  He looked at her in a hurt way that touched her. ‘When I tell you, ma’am, that from the moment of my arrival in Paris Miss Marling has persistently encouraged the advances of a certain French gentleman not unconnected with her family, and has upon every occasion preferred his company to mine, you will hardly assure me that her affections are unchanged.’

  ‘But I do, sir,’ Mary said earnestly. ‘I do not know how she may have behaved to you, but you must bear in mind that she is as wilful as she is pretty, and delights, perhaps unwisely, in provoking people with her teasing ways. The gentleman you ref