He had not been to London on leave for above a year, so that his aunt and sister were delighted to see him, and could not fail to notice many changes in him, due to his advancing years. They hung about him in the fondest way, and found him all that a young officer should be. He was glad to be with them again, kissed them both most affectionately, and did his best to answer all their eager questions. But Deborah’s asking him if he were happy in his career, and liked the other officers in the 14th, recalled to his mind its most pressing preoccupation, and he immediately adverted to the desirability of his exchanging into a cavalry regiment.

Deborah said at once that he must put such an idea out of his head, since the cost of it would be too great.

“Oh, but it would not be above eight hundred pounds, and very likely less, with the exchange money!” Kit assured her. “I have a particular reason for wishing to be in a better regiment. You know, it is shabby work to be in a Line regiment, Deb! Only think how well a Hussar uniform would become your only brother!”

Miss Grantham, however, was impervious to his cajolery, and replied: “Indeed, Kit, it would be impossible! Poor Aunt Lizzie has had such losses lately that you would not wish her to be put to extra expense on your account.”

“Oh no. But you are bound to come about again, ma’am, I am persuaded! You would like to see me in a pelisse and silver lace, now, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, but I do not know how it may be managed, dearest,” said Lady Bellingham, looking very much distressed. “You have no idea what a charge this house is upon me! And now here is—” She broke off, as she encountered a warning glance from her niece, and said hurriedly: “But that we shall say nothing about! We will talk of it later, Kit.”

“But you are living in such famous style here!” he said, looking about him critically. “I never saw anything to equal it. It must have cost a fortune to furnish this house!”

“Well, that is just it,” replied his aunt. “It did cost a fortune, not that it is paid for yet, because no one could possibly pay such bills as the wretched people are for ever dunning me with, but the thing is that everyone wants to run upon tick nowadays, and the times are so bad I declare it is a rarity to see a rouleau of as much as twenty guineas! And the E.O. table does not answer as well as we had hoped, besides being not quite the style of thing I like to have in my house.”

“An E.O. table!” he repeated, in astonished accents. “My dear ma’am, you do not have that here, surely?”

“Why not?” asked his sister, in rather a hard voice. “This is a gaming-house, Kit.”

He stirred uneasily in his chair, and began to talk about private parties.

“Oh, we send out cards of invitation, but we turn no one away from our door who has a few guineas to risk at the tables!” Deborah said.

It was evident that he could not like this, but as he stood a little in awe of his sister he did not say much until she had left the room. He turned then to Lady Bellingham, and desired her to tell him what could have possessed her to change the character of her evening-parties.

It had been agreed between Deborah and Lady Bellingham that nothing should be told Kit about the mortgage on the house, or Mr Ravenscar’s threats to foreclose, but her ladyship divulged the rest of the story, not omitting the scandalous bill for green peas, or the inclusion in the household of Phoebe Laxton. Kit was quite bewildered, and had the greatest difficulty in unravelling the story. His sense of propriety, offended at the outset by the discovery that his aunt’s select card-parties had sadly deteriorated, was still more severely tried by the knowledge that an attempt had been made to bribe his sister into relinquishing her claims to Lord Mablethorpe’s title and fortune; but he said, in a fair-minded way, that if she had been allowed for the past year to preside over the saloons of what had become no better than a common gaming-house, he was not at all surprised, and could not blame Mablethorpe’s relations for misliking the connexion.

Lady Bellingham wept, and never thought of telling him that his own expensive habits had had much to do in making it necessary for her to turn her home into a gaming-house. She said that it was all very unlucky, but indeed she had not known where to turn for money to pay the tradesmen. As for Deb, if only she could be brought to marry Mablethorpe, there would be no harm done, but, on the contrary, a great deal of good. “For she met him at the faro-table, you know, Kit, and even if he is a little young for her, it would be a splendid match!”

“I cannot think what can possess her to refuse such an eligible offer!” exclaimed Mr Grantham. “Particularly now, when it would mean everything to me to have my sister in a position of consequence! However, she knows nothing of that yet, and I daresay she will change her mind when I tell her.”

“Tell her what, dear boy?” asked his aunt, drying her eyes. “I assure you, she will listen to no one! Indeed, I think she has taken leave of her senses!”

Mr Grantham coloured, stammered, and then said in a self-conscious voice: “The fact is, ma’am, I expect—that is, I hope—I believe I may say that I have every reason to think that—t—in short, aunt, I am in the expectation of being married herself shortly. You will recall that I mentioned the subject to you in a letter.”

“Oh, yes!” said her ladyship, sighing. “But Deb says she cannot possibly be meaning to get married yet, and indeed Kit, you are very young to be thinking of such a thing!”

“Deb is a great deal too busy!” said Kit, affronted. “She never been in love, so I may not be either! But if you could only see her, aunt!”

“But I do see her!” objected her ladyship. “What can you thinking of, Kit?”

“Not Deb! Arabella!” said Mr Grantham, pronouncing name in a reverent tone.

“Oh!” said his aunt. “But it will cost you far more to be married than if you were to stay single, dearest. You can have notion what housekeeping bills are like! Only fancy! Seven pounds for green peas!”

“Well, as to that,” said Mr Grantham, reddening still more. “Arabella is quite an heiress. Not that I mean to live upon fortune, which is one reason why I should like to exchange ma’am. But she comes of one of the best families, and all hinges upon my being found acceptable by her guardian. It would above anything great if Deb were to become Lady Mablethorpe! Only think what a difference it would make.”

“Very true, my dear, but you will never prevail with him,” said his aunt gloomily. “It would make a great difference too.”

“And instead of this,” pursued Mr Grantham, with a strong sense of injury, “I find that this house has become little more than a gaming-hell! Nothing could be more unfortunate! I think you should have been more careful, ma’am!”

Lady Bellingham was quite crushed by this severity, but could not feel that Kit had entirely grasped the exigencies of her situation. She tried, in a half-hearted way, to make him understand how difficult it was for a widow with expensive tastes and a nephew and a niece dependent upon her to live a restricted income, but as his mind seemed to be all wholly taken up with his own problems, it was doubtful if attended to much that she said. At the first pause in her rambling explanation, he favoured her with a description of Arabella’s manifold charms, and expressed his conviction that if anything were to stand between him and marriage to his lady, he should find himself unable to support life, and might just as well blow his brains out and be done with it.

Lady Bellingham was horrified to hear such sentiments on his lips, and begged him to consider her nerves. His sister, when the conversation was reported to her, merely replied that she had listened to much the same stuff from Lord Mablethorpe, who was now falling in love with Phoebe as fast as he could.

“But Kit is so impulsive!” sighed Lady Bellingham. “I must say, it would be a splendid thing if he were to marry an heiress, my love, and I am very sorry if anything I have done should put a spoke in his wheel.”

“How dare Kit say such a thing to you?” exclaimed Deborah. “I never heard of anything so ungrateful in my life! If he talks in that vein to me, he shall soon hear what I think of his folly! As for his marrying an heiress, pooh! It will come to nothing, ma’am, for he has been in love a dozen times before, and will doubtless be in love a dozen times again. Who is the girl?”

“Oh, I don’t know! He did not tell me, and I was too distracted to ask! My dearest love, he is not at all pleased with us for keeping a gaming-house, and what he will say if he hears of the mortgage, and that horrid man’s foreclosing on me, I shudder to think!”

“You have nothing to worry about on that score, aunt: there will be no foreclosure.”

Miss Grantham spoke with a note of certainty in her voice, for she had received a note, brought round by hand from Mr Kennet’s lodging, reminding her to prepare her cellar for a guest. She had implicit faith in Kennet, and felt perfectly sure that he would contrive to deliver the arch-enemy into her hands by nightfall. Lady Bellingham was expecting a fairly numerous gathering of people in her saloons that evening, and the only question now troubling Miss Grantham was how Kennet and Silas would manage to carry their prisoner into the cellar unobserved. As she could think of no way by which she might assist them, and supposed they must have taken this problem into account, she very sensibly put it out of her head, and went upstairs to change her green saque for an evening gown of dull yellow brocade.

Lady Bellingham had meanwhile presented her nephew to Miss Laxton, first impressing on him that he must not divulge her presence in the house to a living soul. His sister had already explained to him the circumstances leading up to Phoebe’s arrival in St James’s Square, and although he was inclined to think it was excessively imprudent of her to have interfered with what was no concern of hers, he was not proof against the al peal of Phoebe’s soft brown eyes, and air of fragility, and so began to think Deborah had acted in a very proper manner.

He had very little opportunity to converse privately wit Deborah before she went up to change her dress, but he did catch her alone for a few minutes on her way down again to the dining-room, and begged her to tell him whether it was true that she had refused a very advantageous offer of marriage. She replied truthfully that she had not done so, but when she saw how his face brightened she added that she had no real intention of marrying Mablethorpe, although she did not at preset wish this known.

“You are the strangest girl!” he exclaimed. “Why don’t you mean to marry him? I am sure you cannot hope for a better offer! They say he will come into a very pretty fortune, and aunt tells me he is perfectly amiable. I do not know what can ail you!”

“I am not in love with him,” replied Deborah, adding with rather a saucy smile: “You will understand that, I am persuaded!”

He sighed. “Yes, indeed I do, but the cases are not the same. You do not love anyone else, do you?”

“Certainly not, but I am not too old yet to fall in love, I hope

He looked at her rather anxiously. “My aunt mentioned Lord Ormskirk, Deb. I could not well make out what she meant: you know how she will run on! But it did not sound to me—In short, you are not contemplating anything of clandestine nature, are you?”

“No, no!” she assured him. “You need have no fears!”

“I was sure you could not be! But everything seems to me topsy-turvy here now—But I can trust you!”

“I hope so indeed. But can I trust you, Kit? This is very: shocking news, that you are meaning to be married!”

He laughed, and squeezed her arm. “You will always funning! Wait until you see her! You will understand then. She is the tiniest, daintiest little darling you can imagine, at with such countenance, such pretty, taking ways! Only ten one they will not let her marry me, more particularly since her aunt has allowed her house to become a haunt of gamesters. I was never so vexed!”

“If you do not like it, let me advise you to be less expensive said Deborah roundly. “It is not for you to reproach Aunt Lizzie, after all! You cannot suppose that she keeps a gaminghouse from her own choice.”

He looked a good deal mortified, and muttered something about having had no idea that things had come to this pass. “I suppose it was Lucius who put the idea into my aunt’s head. I wonder that he should have encouraged you to lend yourself to it!”