He longed to answer her in kind, or better to sweep her into his arms and kiss that saucy smile. When had Prudence become such an accomplished flirt? “My cousin may be enough to hold you in check; I require the full weight of clergy and the law.”

“You have set yourself a new standard, I gather?”

“Yes.”

“And are quite determined to stick to it?”

“I am.”

“Tant pis,”she said with a toss of her head, and turned to join Clarence and her mother.

Provoking girl, he thought, watching her go. No, provocative girl. She is doing it on purpose to bait me, but she won’t succeed.

Across the room, Prudence was similarly occupied in considering Dammler's behaviour. He had become as stiff and proper as a martinet. The old lightness and fun had gone from him, and she couldn’t understand it. In off-guard moments, she noticed his eyes looking at her longingly, so why was he being distant? If he had come to offer for her, why didn’t he do it?

While the youngsters and savages had been dancing, Elmtree and the Countess had made great advances in their friendship. They were two chunks cut from the same bolt, and hadn’t a flaw to find in each other. Elmtree had received gracious permission to paint her, and the very next morning was agreed upon as the first of the three sittings. Prudence felt a great fear she would be called upon to chaperone them, and to make it more inconvenient, the picture was to be painted here, at the Countess’ home.

“I will want a corner of the room in the background,” she was saying. “The Purple Saloon, I think, with Papa’s picture in the background.

“We can do better than that for a symbol,” Clarence informed her. “Some heraldic emblem or crest. We won’t want any room in the background. Your colouring calls for a solid curtain of blue, to bring out your bright cheeks, with the family crest for a symbol.”

The Countess considered this, and found it not wanting in taste. It was agreed, but when Clarence mentioned that he would go to Beecher Hill one day and paint some Nature, the Countess was visited by inspiration. “Gainsborough,” she said. “You will paint me surrounded by Nature, as Gainsborough painted my mother.”

“A green curtain would do as well as a blue, with the orange cheeks,” Clarence said. Certainly frees, grass and shrubs would merge into a curtain of undifferentiated green in his rendition. It was settled that the green curtain of Beecher Hill would provide the backdrop for tomorrow’s painting session.

“You will come with me, Dammler,” she decreed.

“Why do we not all go and make a picnic of it?” he suggested, to secure Prudence’s company.

Mrs. Mallow hastily excused herself, but Prudence agreed to go, and the next morning under a lead grey sky they went to Beecher Hill to paint sunny Nature.

Chapter 20

The Countess proved an admirable model. She asked what Clarence was doing with every movement of the brush, and was appreciative of ochre shadows and the impossibility of foreshortening. Her hands seemed to fall naturally into the correct pose without a word being said. The two went on so merrily that Dammler ventured to mention that he and Miss Mallow might go for a stroll until it was time to eat.

“Yes, run along,” the Countess said. “You disturb Mr. Elmtree with your fidgetting and prattle. An artist needs peace and quiet to work.”

“How very well they rub along,” Dammler said as they began to walk away. “My cousin spoke last night of going up to London next Season. I think Elmtree has been getting to her.”

“Hussy. I should stay behind to protect my uncle. I was never before allowed to abandon him to such peril as a titled widow. But she may find herself at point non plus. He speaks of buying up a little cottage in Bath.”

“Do you suppose we’ve unwittingly brought about a match?”

“Let us wait and see if the magnum opus pleases. She may not like having a button nose and a sylph-like figure.”

“She can console herself with the family crest.”

“I don’t know that it will be a consolation. Uncle has never painted a lion rampant before. He will likely turn it into a pussy cat, and don’t think for a moment he will disfigure the unicorn by including the horn. That will be removed entirely.” She strayed behind a bunch of thorn bushes as she talked, and her companion pointed out that it might be better if they stayed in sight of their relations.

“Why?” she asked.

“My cousin is a Trojan for propriety,” he said, but his only reason for mentioning it was to let her see his own new awareness of decorum.

It seemed so foolish to Prudence, after the degree of latitude pertaining to their former intercourse, that she laughed outright. “I believe the Divines have got to you, Dammler. I fully expect to see you standing up to take the reading at the Abbey next Sunday.” She scampered out of the protection of her uncle, and Dammler followed at no dragging pace, but intent on being punctilious to every minutia of respect.

“You will be a sad disappointment to your friends if you carry on so in London,” Prudence warned him with a teasing smile. She did not like this new Dammler nearly so well as the old, and was determined to change him back.

“I mean to discontinue association with such friends as would be disappointed,” he answered carefully.

“Do you indeed? So I am to be cut, am I?”

He stopped walking and turned to face her. “I am trying to be a perfectly honourable and respectable gentleman, Prudence, and you are not of much help.”

She pouted. “You did not treat me so formally before. Why must you change?”

“To please you. Why do you think I languish in that barracks of a place my cousin has, with no agreeable company, going to lectures and discussions on the Reformed calendar, but to please you?”

“Please me? I wouldn’t do such things myself. Why should I expect it of you?”

“Ihave a past to expiate.”

“You will have a worse future to expiate as well if you carry on in this way much longer. I see you chafing at the bit to laugh and joke and so on.”

“Especially so on.” The temptation was too much for him. He grabbed her, first by the hands, but soon had both arms around her in a strong grip and was trying to kiss her.

At twenty-four years of age, Prudence had never been in a man’s arms before. Never had been kissed. She had wanted to turn Dammler back to his old funning self; she had never expected this violent result, and pushed him off in surprise.

“That was not called for,” she said, gasping for breath.

“Don’t tease me if you don’t want me to reciprocate. I'm too new at respectability to withstand this repeated temptation. You’re flaunting yourself at me, Prudence. With those low-cut gowns and fast talk. If you really want me to be worthy, don’t do it.”

“I am not flaunting myself,” she replied in indignation.

“You’ve been egging me on to misbehave since the moment I came here. I came determined to be good, respectable, to please you. I would not have borne what I have these past two weeks but for you, and you repay me by trying at every chance to make me break my resolve, so you can throw in my face what a rake I am.”

“I did not.”

“You did, my girl, and you wouldn’t be so angry if it weren’t true.”

“How was I to know why you were acting so unlike yourself? You never said a word to me.”

“And you, who know me better than I know myself, couldn’t imagine why? Why did you think I went flying off to Reading to make an ass of myself in front of you and Seville, green with jealousy, if not because I loved you.”

She opened her mouth to answer, closed it again, and finally said, “Well, why didn’t you stay then?”

“You made it perfectly clear you had no use for me. I asked you if I could come on with you to Bath, but you didn’t want any disreputable companions accompanying you, so I tried to change myself, to become whatever it is you think you want. Well I'm finished with it. I'm not a saint, and I can’t become one with you cutting me at every effort I make. You didn’t like my old self, and you don’t seem to like the new one any better. You delight in torturing me. If you’ve turned into a flirt, be one full-time. I like it very well, but don’t slip back into being an outraged spinster the minute I respond.”

“I am not a flirt!”

“You’re giving a fair imitation of one. There is a name for girls who lead men on, only to swat them down at the last minute. I shan’t sully your virginal ears with it, but you’ll hear it from someone soon enough if you go on in this way.”

“Why stick at telling me then, since I am so clearly lost to all sense of propriety?"

“You’d like to have something else to beat me over the head with, but I’m on to you now, Miss Mallow. You knew all along what I was. I may have been a damned fool, but I was never a hypocrite.”

“No, not before you came here with a poker up your spine and this pompous air of self-righteousness. You- you of all people, to be reading me a lecture in morals!”

"The tables are turned, are they not?”

“I never lectured you, much as you deserved it.”

“Indeed you did not! You enjoyed leading me on to reveal every last shred of my shame, while you sat with your mouth pursed and to ask me another leading question. But you’ve led me on for the last time. This is the end of it.”

A clap of thunder pealed, and a flash of lightning rent the sky. These ominous signs were followed by a sprinkling of rain, and the argument had to be discontinued while they ran back to the carriage. No further squabbling was possible with the Dowager and Clarence present. They elected to continue the painting session at the Countess’ home, and Prudence in a tight voice said that she would like to be left at Laura Place.

She was sure she had lost Dammler. She considered his lecture, and while it angered her, she had to admit there was some justice in it. He had been behaving very properly since coming to Bath, and she had been chaffing him. In fact, the more proper he had become, the harder she had tried to make him stop. And he loved her, he had even said that, and she hadn’t known how to turn it to her advantage. She may have been trying to flirt, but she realized she had a long way to go. How could she have stood there and heard him tell her he loved her and managed to send him away angry? “This is the end of it.”

Dammler went home to Pulteney Street even more perturbed. As usual, he had said too much, too violently, been too quick-made a fool of himself. There was perhaps some justification in what he had said, but it was no way to go about conciliating an angry lady. He hadn’t the patience to hang on in this shilly-shallying manner. Wise Prudence had seen through him, knew he was no stodgy worthy, and didn’t care for his pretense. She had liked him best as himself, so he would be himself. He couldn’t go on pretending to be what he was not for the rest of his life.

Dammler went into town, ordered six dozen red roses to be delivered to her that day, and a dozen dozen the next, and sent off to the Abbey for the family engagement ring. He then went to his cousin’s home and sat in the Purple Saloon, watching the rain glide down the windows.

The first six dozen red roses were delivered to Laura Place, where they caused a pleasant stir.

“He means to do it up proper this time,” Clarence said. “He will be here today if he has to drive all night.”

“He is only staying at Pulteney Street,” Prudence reminded him.

“Aye, so he is. He should be here any minute.”

Looking out at the sodden earth, Prudence didn’t expect he would come that day, nor did he. This is a little reminder to me, she smiled to herself. When a gentleman takes to sending an excess of flowers and diamonds, he means no good. She looked carefully among the flowers for a diamond, but there was none. He is telling me that what I deserve after my flirtation is a carte blanche, but still it was not what she expected. She had no dread on that score. The only question in her mind was when he would arrive in person. When the dozen dozen roses arrived the next morning, Mrs. Mallow was thrown into quite a tizzy.

“What can he mean by this?” she asked her daughter. “It seems so very odd, but no doubt it is some sort of a joke.”

“Yes, it is a joke. Mama,” Prudence told her.

Mrs. Mallow looked at her daughter’s satisfied smile, and though she did not see the humour of the situation, but only the foolish extravagance of more flowers than they had vases for, she was happy. At three o’clock Clarence returned from the second sitting, bringing the canvas with him, two-thirds finished. Already a snub-nosed Mona Lisa was taking shape, her orange cheeks standing out against the background of unvariegated green. There was only the family crest to be done, and a few finishing touches. Dammler came along with him.