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  ‘If you take my advice, Bella,’ struck in the Viscount,‘you will not go jauntering about the country with Revesby!’

  ‘Thank you, Sherry, you are very good, but since my Mama sees no objection to Sir Montagu, I do not know why you should.’

  ‘I am sure Sir Montagu is everything that is most unexceptionable,’ said the dowager. ‘Only if you are set on going, my love, I wish I might prevail upon Anthony to escort you, for I am sure you would be more comfortable with him.’

  ‘On the contrary, ma’am, I should not be at all comfortable with him, for of all things I most abominate a man in a fit of the sullens!’ said Miss Milborne acidly.

  ‘Take care!’ retorted the Viscount.‘If you set up my back I’m dashed if I’ll gallant you to the Lower Rooms to-night!’

  ‘Good gracious! do you mean to do so?’ said Miss Milborne. ‘I assure you I had not the smallest expectation of your being willing to go to the ball!’

  ‘Well, I am willing, and what’s more I’ve paid for a subscription which gives me a couple of ladies’ tickets as well, so if you and my mother choose to go this evening, you may do so,’ said his lordship gracefully.

  ‘I must say that was very prettily done of you, Anthony!’ approved his parent.

  ‘I want to see my wife,’ responded his lordship.‘And I can tell how it will be if I call in Camden Place again!’

  ‘She will surely not be present!’ exclaimed Lady Sheringham. ‘She would not have the effrontery!’

  ‘I know of no reason why she should not go anywhere she chooses!’ retorted Sherry, firing up. ‘And as she has her name down to dance the minuet with some fellow of the name of Tarleton, and is engaged to George for the first cotillion, I assume that she certainly has the intention of being present!’

  So indeed it proved. The jealous look in Sherry’s eye at the Pump Room seemed to indicate that Lady Saltash’s advice had been sound. It had set Hero’s heart fluttering, until she remembered that she had seen that look in his eye once before, when she had kissed George, and it had not then appeared to betoken anything more than a dog-in-the-mangerish spirit. Between joy at seeing him again, hurt that he should have come to Bath in Isabella’s train, hope that he might be desirous of having his wife again, and fear lest he should not, she knew not what to think. To go to the ball, and perhaps to see Sherry gallanting Isabella there,must give her pain; to stay away, and so miss the dear sight of him, was unthinkable; and mixed up with all this was a wish, born of pride, to conceal her unhappiness from him, even to make him think that she did very well without him. So she had permitted Mr Tarleton to put her name down for the minuet, and had engaged herself to dance the first cotillion with George, and the second with Ferdy. To Mr Tarleton was to fall the privilege of taking her in to tea. She had not made up her mind about the country dances. Sherry never stood for them, voting them a great bore, but if he should break his rule and solicit her hand, she did not think that she would be able to refuse him.

  Those meaning to take their places in the minuet were obliged to present themselves in the ballroom not later than eight o’clock, so Lady Saltash’s party arrived at the Lower Assembly Rooms considerably in advance of Lady Sheringham’s. The minuet had started when Sherry escorted his ladies into the room, and installed his mother on one of the upper benches. Hero, gracefully performing her part in the dance, could not help reflecting that it was something new for the Incomparable to be obliged to sit at the side of the room while other, and much less dazzling, females took the floor. Then she scolded herself for such an ill-natured thought, acknowledging that the Incomparable was only sitting out because there had been no time for her to set her name down for the minuet. She was looking quite superb to-night, too, dressed in a cloud of primrose gauze, her tawny locks exquisitely cut and curled, her skin almost unbelievably white. As Hero watched her, she looked up at Sherry, standing beside her chair, smiling rather mischievously. Some quality of intimacy in that smile, something in the way Sherry bent to hear what was being said to him, stabbed Hero. He too smiled, and nodded, and uttered some remark which made Miss Milborne laugh, and lift an admonitory finger. Then the movement of the dance made it necessary for Hero to turn her back on them, and she took care not to glance in their direction again. Instead, she embarked on a playful flirtation with Mr Tarleton. This was not missed by Sherry, who no sooner saw who her partner was than he said, quite unreasonably, that he might have known that the fellow would turn out to be Tarleton.

  As soon as the minuet ended, and while the couples were still moving slowly off the floor, a young gentleman came up to Hero to beg her to dance the first country dance with him. She accepted, people began to take their places for it, and by the time the Viscount, threading his way across the room, reached his wife’s side, her new partner was leading her into the set. He was so nettled that he went straight back to Isabella, reaching her a bare instant before Sir Montagu Revesby, and saying savagely:‘Come and stand up with me, Bella! I’m dashed if I will give my little wretch the pleasure of seeing me propping the wall, as George does!’

  ‘But you never stand up for the country dances!’ Isabella reminded him.

  ‘I’ll stand up for this if it kills me!’ swore his lordship.

  Hero’s set was already made up, and he was obliged to join the second set. This was not what he wanted, but Miss Milborne could only be thankful, since the prospect of standing up with a gentleman who was bent on catching the eye and ear of another lady in the same set was not one which she could view with anything but misgiving.

  Hero, of course, saw his lordship lead out Miss Milborne, and she at once felt that her cup was full. She would have liked to have fled from the ballroom to indulge in a hearty bout of tears, but since she could not do this she became extremely animated instead, and laughed and talked, and presented all the appearance of a young lady who was enjoying herself prodigiously. The Viscount, marking this callous behaviour, promptly imitated it; and as Miss Milborne had just seen Lord Wrotham’s striking figure in the doorway she had no hesitation in encouraging her childhood’s friend to flirt with her as much as he liked. Since his more extravagant sallies were interspersed by comments, delivered in a furious undervoice, on his wife’s shameless conduct, she was in no danger of over-estimating the worth of the compliments he paid her.

  Whatever might have been the Viscount’s intentions when the dance ended, they were frustrated by the descent upon him of Mr Guynette, the Master of Ceremonies. Mr Guynette was well accustomed to handling reluctant gentlemen, and before his victim was aware of what was happening, he had presented him to quite the plainest damsel in the room, a circumstance which should have brought home to his lordship the unwisdom of neglecting to write his name in the Master’s subscription-book. Common civility obliged Sherry to ask the plain young lady to stand up with him, and as she had no hesitation in accepting the invitation, he was condemned to another half-hour of purgatory. The first cotillion followed, which Hero danced with George; and then everyone went in to tea. Isabella had by this time collected the usual court round herself, of which the most prominent member seemed to be Sir Montagu; Hero and Mr Tarleton were seated at a table which had no vacant place when the Viscount succeeded in edging his way into the crowded tea-room; so the end of it was that his lordship was forced to join several unpartnered gentlemen by the buffet. Here he found Lord Wrotham, who was wearing his well-known thunder-cloud aspect; and such was the state of his mind that he forgot that he had parted from Wrotham on the worst of bad terms, and hailed him thankfully as a kindred spirit.

  ‘Of all the abominably stupid evenings!’ he ejaculated. ‘It is ten times worse than Almack’s!’

  ‘I should like to know,’ said George, eyeing him broodingly, ‘what the devil you meant by telling me it was I who had engaged Miss Milborne’s affections?’

  ‘Never told you any such thing!’ replied the Viscount. ‘Not but what she as good as told me so. What’s put you in a miff?’

  ‘I