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  ‘Foundries, sir?’ said Mr Trevor, stunned by so unprecedented an enquiry.

  ‘Something to do with the casting of metals, I fancy,’ explained the Marquis, levelling his glass at the litter of papers on the desk. ‘Good God, Charles, why have you never told me how overworked you are? What, in the name of abomination, is all this?’

  ‘Only quarter-day, sir!’ said Charles, laughing. ‘Coleford has been with me – knowing that if he were to give these papers to your lordship you wouldn’t read a word of them! But – foundries? Do you – do you wish for information about them?’ An idea occurred to him; his eyes kindled, and he asked: ‘Is there to be some question raised? Do you mean to speak on it, sir?’

  ‘Really, Charles, what extraordinary things you do ask me!’ said his lordship. ‘My dear boy, is it likely that I should feel the smallest desire to do so?’

  ‘No, sir,’ responded Mr Trevor frankly. ‘Indeed, I didn’t know you were interested in such matter!’

  The Marquis sighed, and shook his head. ‘Alas, I have frequently suspected that you believe me to be a very frippery fellow!’

  ‘Yes, but – I mean, no, of course I don’t, sir!’ said Mr Trevor, correcting himself in a hurry.

  ‘You lie, Charles: you do! And you are perfectly right,’ said his lordship mournfully. ‘I have no interest in foundries. However, it is never too late to mend, and I am now about to cultivate an interest in them. Or am I? Now I come to think of it, it isn’t foundries, but pneumatic lifts. Do you know anything about pneumatic lifts?’

  ‘No, sir, I don’t. But I do know when you are roasting me!’

  ‘You wrong me, Charles. Somewhere in Soho there is a foundry which contains a pneumatic lift. I wish to see it. Tear yourself away from all these deplorable documents, and arrange it for me, dear boy!’

  ‘Yes, sir – certainly!’ said Mr Trevor mechanically.

  ‘I was persuaded I might rely upon you. I own, it disappoints me a trifle to find you ignorant on the subject of pneumatic lifts, but perhaps you have instead made a study of boilers and propellers?’

  Mr Trevor, eyeing him in speechless astonishment, shook his head.

  ‘Come, come, Charles!’ said his lordship reprovingly. ‘This must be set right! How can you expect to make your mark in the world if you make no attempt to keep abreast of the times? You shall take a trip down river on a steamboat, to learn about these things.’

  His much-tried secretary said roundly: ‘Much obliged to you, sir, but I’m not an engineer, and I don’t wish to learn about boilers! And as for going on a steamboat, I’ll be da – I’d as lief not!’

  ‘Well, I’m not an engineer either,’ said his lordship. ‘And, like you, I’ll be damned if I go on a steamboat. But I do hope you won’t be, for something tells me that it will shortly be one of your duties.’

  Half-laughing and wholly bewildered, Charles said: ‘But why, sir? I know you’re funning, but –’

  ‘No such thing! When you have met my latest acquaintance – ah, a young cousin of mine! – you will perceive that this is no matter for idle joking.’

  ‘Latest – a cousin?’ stammered Charles. ‘Sir, I beg pardon, but what can you mean?’

  The Marquis, pausing in the doorway, looked back, to say, with one of his quizzical smiles: ‘You should know, my dear boy: it was you who edged me on to visit his sisters. So, if you find yourself accompanying my cousin Felix on a steamboat cruise, you will have come by your just deserts. But you were quite right about Charis: a pearl past price!’

  The door closed behind him, and Mr Trevor was left to make what he could of this. It was not very much, for while he could readily believe that the Marquis, struck by the younger Miss Merriville’s beauty, had formed the intention of making her the object of one of his fits of gallantry, he could not, by any stretch of his imagination, believe that he would go to the length of providing for her brother’s entertainment merely to fix his interest with her. He seldom found it necessary to exert particular pains to attach an attractive female, since most of them, thought Charles disapprovingly, were on the scramble for him. If he did receive a rebuff he shrugged, and passed on, for he flirted for the sake of amusement, and any tendre that he might feel was neither lasting nor profound. As for putting himself out, as he now seemed to be doing, that was so very unlike him that Charles, who believed himself to be pretty well acquainted with his lordship, had to own that he was baffled to account for it. It did not occur to him that his lordship had yielded to the blandishments of a persistent urchin; and if such a notion had crossed his mind he would have dismissed it as an absurdity.

  Meanwhile, the Marquis, driving himself in his curricle, was on his way to Grosvenor Place. He arrived there to find his sister’s landaulet drawn up outside her house, and his sister, accompanied by her two elder daughters, on the point of stepping into it. ‘In the nick of time, I perceive!’ he remarked. ‘Delay your departure for five minutes, Louisa!’

  Lady Buxted, in whose breast her defeat at his hands still rankled, bade him a cold good-morning, and added that she had not the least guess what could have brought him to visit her.

  His groom having run to the horses’ heads, Alverstoke flung off the rug that covered his legs, and descended lightly from the curricle, saying: ‘How should you?’ He looked her over critically. ‘Accept my compliments! that’s a good rig, and I like your neck-ruff.’

  Lady Buxted might deplore her frivolous brother’s à la modality, but she could not help preening herself a little. It was not often that her taste won his approbation. She touched the little ruff of goffered lawn which supported her chin, and said: ‘My fraise, do you mean? I’m indeed flattered to meet with your approval, Alverstoke!’

  He nodded, as though he took this for granted, but addressed himself to his nieces. ‘You two – Jane, and – Maria, is it? – wait for your mother in the carriage! I shan’t keep her many minutes.’

  Lady Buxted, by no means relishing this cavalier treatment of her daughters, was torn between a desire to send her brother about his business, and a rampant curiosity. Curiosity won; and she turned to go back into the house, saying, however, that five minutes were all she could spare. He vouchsafed no response, but followed her up the steps, and into the dining-room. Lady Buxted did not invite him to sit down. ‘Well, what is it?’ she asked. ‘I have a great deal of shopping to do, and –’

  ‘More, even, than you bargained for, I daresay,’ he interrupted. ‘Take that eldest girl of yours to your dressmaker, and tell her to make a ball-dress for her! And, for the lord’s sake, Louisa, don’t let it be white, or pale blue, or pink! She’s as bran-faced as ever she was, and the only thing for it is to rig her out in amber, or jonquil, or straw!’

  The unexpected hope which this command rekindled in Lady Buxted’s breast made it easy for her to overlook the animadversion on Miss Buxted’s freckles. Surprise almost took her breath away, but she managed to utter: ‘Alverstoke! Do you mean – can you mean – that you will give a ball for her?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean,’ he replied. He added: ‘Upon terms, dear Louisa!’

  She scarcely heeded this rider, but exclaimed: ‘Oh, my dear Vernon, I was positive I could depend on you! I knew you were bantering me! What a wicked, freakish wretch you are! But I shan’t scold you, for I know it is just your way! Oh, Jane will be cast into transports!’

  ‘Oblige me, then, by telling her nothing about it until I’m out of reach!’ said his lordship acidly. ‘And do, for God’s sake, abate your own ecstasies! I prefer your jobations to your raptures! Sit down, and I’ll tell you what I want you to do!’

  She looked for a moment as though she was on the brink of answering him in kind, but only for a moment. The prospect of bringing Jane out at a magnificent ball for which she would not be called upon to disburse as much as a halfpenny made it easy for her to ignore his lordship’s incivility. She sat down, throwing open her olive-brown pelisse. ‘To be sure! How much we have to discuss! Now, when shall