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‘George ought to beg Sherry’s pardon. Trouble is, he won’t,’ said Ferdy.‘Come to think of it, he’s been spoiling for a fight for a long time. Never can find anyone to go out with him in the general way. If it weren’t Sherry, I’d say it was a shame to ruin the only bit of pleasure the poor fellow has had in months.’

  ‘But it is Sherry!’ Hero cried.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ferdy mournfully. ‘Pity!’

  ‘Never mind that!’ interposed Mr Ringwood. ‘It’s got to be stopped. Don’t pay any heed to Ferdy, Kitten! You listen to me! And, mind! not a word of this to Sherry, for he’d be as mad as Bedlam if he knew I’d breathed a syllable to you, and very likely call me out, and Ferdy too!’

  ‘No, no, I promise I will not say a word to Sherry!’

  ‘I can’t move George; Ferdy can’t move George. Tried our best already. Only one person he’ll listen to.’

  ‘Isabella!’ exclaimed Hero.

  ‘That’s it. The thing is for you to see her. Friend of yours. Won’t refuse to help you. Persuade her to send for George. Tell her not to spread it about the town, though! Get her to coax George out of the sullens, and send him along to see Sherry. I know Sherry: let George but hold out his hand, and the whole thing will blow over in a trice!’

  ‘I will go to Isabella at once!’ Hero said, the peril in which Sherry stood ousting every other consideration from her mind.

  She set forth immediately, arriving at the Milborne residence just as Isabella mounted the steps, with her abigail. Isabella greeted her affectionately, and would have shown her some interesting purchases she had been making, had it not been plain to a much meaner intelligence than hers that Hero had come to visit her on more urgent affairs than frills and furbelows. She at once took her friend up to her dressing-room, and begged to be allowed to know in what way she could serve her.

  Until that moment it had not occurred to Hero that there could be the least difficulty in disclosing the whole of her story to Miss Milborne, but under the steady gaze of those lovely eyes she found herself faltering in her recital, blushing a little, stumbling over what before had seemed so simple and so natural.

  Miss Milborne heard her out, in slowly gathering wrath. It was just as she had suspected: Hero had indeed stolen another of her suitors, and Wrotham was as volatile as her Mama had so often assured her he was! If she needed any confirmation of the gravity of the episode, she had it in Sherry’s challenge to George. Miss Milborne was well aware that no sane man would call George out, except under the most extreme provocation, and since Sherry had shown no signs of inebriety at the ball she failed to allow for the exhilarating properties of champagne punch as mixed by the Honourable Ferdy Fakenham. Her bosom swelled, and she was conscious of a humiliating desire to burst into tears. As for Hero’s explanation that George had kissed her because she had rejected his violets, she had never heard anything so lame in her life. She said in a trembling voice: ‘I am sure I do not wonder that Sherry should have called him out! But you, Hero – how could you do so? I had not thought you so fast, so lacking in principle!’

  ‘I am not fast or lacking in principle!’ said Hero indignantly. ‘I was so sorry for poor George that if he wanted to kiss me – just for comfort, you know! – it would have been quite horrid of me to have repulsed him!’

  ‘My dear Lady Sheringham, I wish you will not put yourself to the trouble of telling me nonsensical stories!’ said Miss Milborne, in what she meant to be a stately manner but which, even to her own ears, sounded merely pettish.

  ‘Isabella Milborne, I think you are the cruellest creature alive!’ said Hero, her eyes flashing. ‘I would not credit it when George said you had no heart, but I think you have none indeed! How can you have looked at poor George last night and not pitied him?’

  Miss Milborne averted her face, replying stiffly: ‘What pity I may have felt for Lord Wrotham – and you are not to be a judge of that, if you please! – was plainly thrown away, since he contrived very speedily to console himself.’

  ‘Fudge!’ retorted Hero. ‘He wanted to kiss you, but since he could not, and I was there, he kissed me instead; but as for consoling himself – why, how can you be so stupid? Do you not know how it is with gentlemen? They kiss so easily, and it does not mean anything at all!’

  ‘No, I am happy to say I do not,’ replied Miss Milborne.

  ‘Good gracious! I quite thought you knew much more than I did, for you have been out for so much longer!’ exclaimed Hero ingenuously.

  Miss Milborne flushed, and answered in a voice with an edge to it:‘Do you mean to suggest, ma’am, that you consider me to be in danger of becoming an old maid?’

  ‘No, I do not – though perhaps you will be one, if you do not learn to be a little kinder, Isabella!’

  ‘Indeed! Perhaps you would advocate my bestowing my kisses with that generosity you yourself show?’ said Miss Milborne, her colour now much heightened.

  Perceiving that she had thoroughly enraged the Beauty, Hero made haste to say contritely: ‘No, indeed! I beg your pardon: I had no business to say that. It is only that I have a particular kindness for George, and I cannot bear to see him made unhappy.’

  ‘I do not presume to advise you, ma’am, but I must hope that your particular kindness for Lord Wrotham may not lead you into a worse scrape than this unsavoury affair. Forgive me if I speak too boldly! You have done me the signal honour of confiding in me – with what object I am at a loss to understand –’

  ‘Oh, Isabella, pray do not talk in that missish way!’ Hero besought her. ‘Can you not guess why I have come to beg you to help me?’

  ‘I have not the remotest conjecture.’

  ‘Oh, dear, and I was used to think you so clever! The thing is, you must know what George is, Bella; They say he never misses, and, oh, he must not kill Sherry, he shall not kill him!’

  Miss Milborne shrugged her shoulders. ‘I imagine there can be little fear of either killing the other!’

  ‘So I thought, but Gil and Ferdy have been with George all the morning, and they say there is no moving him! He likes fighting duels – isn’t it odd? They say that when he is in one of these tiresome moods there is no doing anything with him! Isabella, I must stop this dreadful meeting!’

  ‘I am sure I do not know how you will contrive to do so.’

  ‘That is why I have come to you, Isabella, though he will not listen to Gil or Ferdy, George will listen to you! Oh, will you be so very obliging as to send for him, and make him promise he won’t fight Sherry? Please, Isabella, will you do that for me?’

  Miss Milborne rose to her feet somewhat suddenly.‘I send for George?’ she repeated, in stupefied tones.‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

  ‘No, of course I have not! You must know that there can be nothing he would not do for your sake! You have only to beg him –’

  ‘I would sooner die an old maid!’

  Startled by the suppressed passion in the Beauty’s voice, Hero could only blink at her in surprise. Miss Milborne pressed her hands to her hot cheeks.‘Upon my word, I had not thought it possible! So I am to send for George, and to supplicate him not to engage in a duel! After he has been making shameless love to you! Nothing – nothing could prevail upon me to do it! I am astonished you should ask it of me! Pray tell me why you, who are on such intimate terms with him, do not supplicate George yourself ! I am persuaded your words must carry quite as much weight with him as mine. More, I dare say!’

  Hero sprang up, her hands tightly locked together within her ermine muff, quite as angry a flush as Isabella’s in her cheeks. ‘You are right! I will go to George! He does not make shameless love to me; no, for he has no love for me! but he is fond of me, a little, and he did say he would not wish to make me unhappy! I do not know how I can have been so foolish as to think that you would help me, for there is nothing behind your beauty but vanity and spite, Isabella!’

  With these words she fairly ran from the room, and down the stairs, letting herself out of the front door, and