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  Mr Steane rose to his feet, saying: 'I shall not conceal from you, young man, that I am by no means satisfied. It has already been made plain to me that you are – not to wrap the matter up in clean linen! – an accomplished fibster. Reluctant though I may be – indeed I am ! – to bring a blush of embarrassment to any delicately nurtured female's cheeks – I perceive that it is my duty, as a parent, to discover from Miss Silverdale the truth of this shocking affair. Not to mention, of course, my ardent desire to clasp my child to my bosom again! If you will be so good, Mr Carrington, as to inform me as to the precise locality of Miss Silverdale's abode, I will relieve you of my presence!'

  'Oh, it's in Hertfordshire!' said Simon carelessly. 'Ask anyone in Ware the way to Inglehurst: they'll tell you!' He added, as Mr Steane picked up his hat: 'But you'd be better advised to await my brother's return! I daresay Lady Silverdale may consent to receive you if you go to Inglehurst under his wing, but she's devilish high in the instep, I warn you, and the chances are that if you go alone you won't get over the doorstep!'

  'You are insolent, my good boy,' replied Mr Steane loftily. 'You are also foolish beyond permission. How, pray, does it come about that this model of propriety has – according to your story – received my daughter into her distinguished household?'

  'Why, because she was sorry for her, of course!' said Simon. 'Just as anyone would be for a girl who had been deserted by her sole surviving parent, and cast destitute upon the world!'

  Mr Steane, casting upon him a look of ineffable disdain, stalked wordlessly out of the room.

  Young Mr Carrington, wasting no more than two minutes over a self-congratulatory review of his encounter with as sly a rogue as had ever, as yet, tried to tap him on the shoulder, realized that if his masterly (if far from truthful) handling of the situation were not to be overset it behoved him to make all possible speed to Inglehurst, to warn Hetta of the ordeal in store for her, and to inform her that he had recklessly betrothed her to Desford.

  He was shrewd enough to feel pretty confident that Mr Steane, in spite of his air of opulence and his boast that he had raised himself from low tide to high water, was not quite so flush in the pocket as he pretended to be. It was unlikely that he would go to the expense of hiring a post-chaise and four to carry him to Inglehurst. If he hired a chaise at all, it would be a chaise and pair, but it was more probable, Simon thought, that he would travel to Ware on the Mail, or even a stage-coach, and hire a carriage there to carry him to Inglehurst. At the same time, it would not do to make too sure of this. Young Mr Carrington, that promising spring of fashion, saw that Adventure was beckoning to him, and responded to the invitation with the alacrity of a schoolboy. In less than half-an-hour he had shed his elegant pantaloons for a pair of riding-breeches; dragged off his natty Hessians; thrust his feet into his riding-boots, and hauled them up over his calves; exchanged his town-coat, with its long tails and buckram-wadded shoulders, for one more suitable for a gentleman about to take part in equestrian exercise; snatched a low-crowned beaver from his wardrobe, and a pair of gloves from a drawer in his dressing-table; a whip from the what-not littered with a heterogeneous assortment of his possessions; and was bounding down the stairs. His arrival on the doorstep coincided with the appearance, round the corner of the street, of his groom, leading the goodlooking hack on which young Mr Carrington frequently lionized in the park, and accompanied by the page-boy who had been sent to summon him.

  A word to his groom, a shilling tossed to the page, and he was off almost before his feet had found the stirrups. But in spite of his delightful sense of urgency, and of being (as he himself would have phrased it) prime for a lark, young Mr Carrington had so far outgrown the heedless impulses of his schooldays as to defer his dash into Hertfordshire until he should have called, for the second time, at his brother's house in Arlington Street.

  Aldham, hurrying up from the basement to answer an im perative summons conveyed by a tug at the bell which set it jangling so noisily and insistently that Mrs Aldham very nearly suffered a spasm, was pardonably incensed when he discovered that it was only Mr Simon, trying to bring the house down over their heads. 'Well, for goodness' sake, sir!' he said indignantly. 'Anyone would think you was that Bonaparty, escaped off St Helena! And don't you try to bring that horse into the house, Mr Simon, for that I will not permit you to do!'

  Simon, who, in default of finding any loafer in the street, had been obliged to lead his hack on to the flagway, to the foot of the few shallow steps which led up to the door of the house, re torted: 'I don't want to bring him into the house! All I want is to know where his lordship is! Do you know?'

  'No, Mr Simon, I do not know!'

  'Oh, don't be so damned discreet!' said Simon explosively. 'This is important, man!'

  'Mr Simon, I promise and swear that I'm telling you the truth! All his lordship said, when he went off, was that he didn't expect to be gone above a day or two, but he didn't tell me where he was going to, and it wasn't my place to ask him!'

  'But – he has returned from Harrowgate, has he?' Simon said, frowning. 'Did you give him my message?'

  'Yes, sir, I gave it to him in your very words,' Aldham assured him. ' "Tell him I shall be in London till the end of the week," you said. And so I did, but his lordship only said to tell you, if you should come enquiring for him again, that he would give you a look-in when he came back. Which, Mr Simon, we are expecting him to do at any moment, Mrs Aldham being poised, as you might say, over the kitchenstove, with a pigeon pie ready to be popped into the oven, and a couple of collops – '

  'The devil fly away with the collops!' interrupted Simon wrathfully. 'Where's his lordship's man? Where's Stebbing?'

  'His lordship gave Tain leave of absence, sir, him having taken a chill on the way back from Harrowgate; and Stebbing's gone with him – with my lord, I mean – being that my lord has gone off in his curricle this time, and not travelling post.'

  'In his curricle? Then he can't have gone far from London! If he should return today, tell him – No. Here, hold my horse, Aldham! I'll scribble a note for his lordship!'

  With these words he thrust his bridle into Aldham's hands, and strode into the house, leaving that devoted but long suffering retainer to cast his eyes up in a mute appeal to heaven

  to grant him patience. It was wholly beneath his dignity to hold even his master's horse, but he accepted the charge without demur, and upon Simon's emergence from the house a bare three minutes later he went so far as to offer him a leg-up, and to chuckle when Simon vaingloriously refused this assistance.

  'Pooh!' said Simon. 'Do you take me for a cripple? Here, take this note, and see you give it to my brother the instant he arrives!'

  'I will, Mr Simon,' promised Aldham. 'Now hold a minute while I tighten the girths! If I'm not taking a liberty, where might you be bound for, sir?'

  'Oh, only to Inglehurst!' answered Simon airily. 'Thank you: that's the dandy!' He then favoured Aldham with a smile, and a wave of his hand, and rode off at a brisk trot towards Piccadilly.

  'And in which sort the wind is,' Aldham said, when re-counting this episode to his wife, 'I know no more than you do, my dearie! Though that's not to say I haven't got my suspicions! And one thing I will say for Mr Simon! For all his carryings-on he's not one to cut his stick when my lord's in trouble, which I'm much afraid he may be!'

  Thirteen

  Simon, knowing the country in the midst of which his birthplace was situated like the back of his hand, reached Inglehurst shortly after three o'clock that afternoon, and turned in at the lodge-gates hard on the heels of a landaulette, displaying on its panels the lozenge-shield proclaiming the widowhood of its owner, and drawn, at a sedate trot, by a pair of wellmatched but sluggish bays. Uncertain of the identity of its solitary occupant (for she was holding up a parasol to protect her complexion from the strong sunlight), he kept at a discreet distance in the rear, until it drew up below the terrace of the house, and he saw, as she shut her parasol, and alighted fr