But Sir Waldo, with fifteen years’ experience at his back, had taken Tiffany’s measure almost at a glance. It was not his custom to trifle with the affections of fledglings, but within a week of having made Tiffany’s acquaintance he set himself, without compunction, to the task of intriguing her to the point of pursuing him in preference to Julian. He had had too many lures cast out to him not to recognize the signs of a lady desirous of engaging his interest; and he knew that for some reason beyond his understanding he possessed the wholly unwanted gift of inspiring debutantes with romantic but misplaced tendres for him. He had been on his guard ever since he had been (as he had supposed) paternally kind to the niece of an old friend. She had tumbled into love with him; and from this embarrassing situation he had learnt also to recognize the signs of a maiden on the verge of losing her heart to him. Since he had nothing but contempt for the man of the world who amused himself at the expense of a pretty girl’s sensibility, it was his practice to discourage any such tendency. Had he detected in Tiffany the least indication of a romantic disposition he would have adhered to his rule; but he saw nothing in her but a determination to add his name to the roll of her conquests, and strongly doubted that she had a heart to lose. If he was wrong, he thought, cynically, that it would do her no harm to experience some of the pangs of unrequited love with which her numerous suitors were afflicted. He believed her to be as selfish as she was conceited; and, while it was possible that time might improve her, he was persuaded that neither her disposition nor her breeding made her an eligible wife for young Lord Lindeth.

He had told Miss Trent that he was not Lindeth’s keeper, and that, in the strictest sense, was true. Julian’s father had left him to the guardianship of his mother, and had appointed two middle-aged legal gentlemen as his trustees; but Sir Waldo’s shrewd Aunt Sophia had enlisted his aid in rearing the noble orphan at a very early stage in Julian’s career, and he had progressed, by imperceptible degrees, from the splendid cousin who initiated his protégé into every manly form of sport (besides sending him guineas under the seals of his occasional letters, and from time to time descending in a blaze of real dapper-dog magnificence on Eton, driving a team of sixteen-mile-an-hour tits, and treating half-a-dozen of his cousin’s cons to such sock as made them the envy of every Oppidan and Tug in the College) to the social mentor who introduced Julian into select circles, and steered himpast the shoals in which many a green navigator had wallowed and foundered. He had come to regard Julian as his especial charge; and although Julian’s years now numbered three-and-twenty he still so regarded him: Lady Lindeth could not blame him more than he would blame himself if he allowed Julian to be trapped into a disastrous marriage without raising a finger to prevent it.

To cut out a young cousin who reposed complete trust in him might go very much against the pluck with him, but it presented few difficulties to a man of his address and experience. Indulged almost from the hour of her birth; endowed not only with beauty but with a considerable independence as well; encouraged to think herself a matrimonial prize of the first stare, Tiffany had come to regard every unattached man’s homage as her due. Sir Waldo had watched her at the Staples ball, playing off her cajolery in an attempt to attach Humphrey Colebatch; and he had not the smallest doubt that she did it only because that scholarly but unprepossessing youth was patently impervious to her charms. He was well aware, too, that while she would look upon his own capture as a resounding triumph he ranked in her eyes amongst the graybeards who had outlived the age of gallantry. There had been speculation, and a hint of doubt, in the swift glance she had first thrown him. She had certainly set her cap at him, but he could have nipped her tentative advances in the bud with the utmost ease. He would have done it had he not seen the glow in Julian’s eyes as they rested on her ravishing countenance, and realized that that guileless young man was wholly dazzled.

Sir Waldo was neither dazzled by Tiffany’s beauty, nor so stupid as to suppose that any good purpose would be served by his pointing out to Julian those defects in the lovely creature which were perfectly plain to him, but to which Julian was obviously blind. But Julian, under his compliance, had a sensibility, and a delicacy of principle, to which virtues Sir Waldo judged Tiffany to be a stranger; and nothing could more effectually cool his ardour than the discovery that in their stead she had vanity, and a sublime disregard for the comfort or the susceptibilities of anyone but herself. Julian might ignore, and indignantly resent, warnings uttered by even so revered a mentor as his Top-of-the-Trees cousin, but he would not disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes. So the Nonesuch, instead of damping the beautiful Miss Wield’s pretensions, blew hot and cold on her, encouraging her one day to believe that she had awakened his interest, and the next devoting himself to some other lady. He paid her occasional compliments, but was just as likely to utter a lazy set-down; and when he engaged her in a little mild flirtation he did it so lightly that she could never be quite sure that he was not merely being playful, in the manner of a man amusing a child. She had not previously encountered his like, for her admirers were all much younger men, quite lacking in subtlety. Either they languished for love of her, or (like Humphrey Colebatch) paid no attention to her at all. But the Nonesuch, by turns fascinating and detestable, was maddeningly elusive, and so far from showing a disposition to languish he laughed at her suitors, and said that they were making great cakes of themselves. Tiffany took that as an insult, and determined to bring him to her feet. He saw the flash of anger in her eyes, and smiled. “No, no! You’d be gapped, you know.”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

“Why, that you’re wondering whether you might not make me a great cake. I shouldn’t attempt it, if I were you: I never dangle—not even after quite pretty girls.”

“Quite pretty—?” she gasped. “M-me?”

“Oh, decidedly!” he said, perfectly gravely. “Or so I think, but, then, I’ve no prejudice against dark girls. I daresay others might not agree with me.”

“They do!” she asserted, pink with indignation. “They say—everyone says I’m beautiful!”

He managed to preserve his countenance, but his lips twitched slightly. “Yes, of course.” he replied. “It’s well known that all heiresses are beautiful!”

She stared up at him incredulously. “But—don’t you think I’m beautiful?”

“Very!”

“Well, I know I am,” she said candidly. “Ancilla thinks I shouldn’t say so—and I meant not to, on account of losing some of my beauty when I do. At least, that’s what Ancilla said, but I don’t see how it could be so, do you?”

“No, indeed: quite absurd! You do very right to mention the matter.”

She thought this over, darkly suspicious, and finally demanded: “Why?”

“People are so unobservant!” he answered in dulcet accents.

She broke into a trill of delicious laughter. “Oh, abominable! You are the horridest creature! I’ll have no more to do with you!”

He waved a careless farewell as she flitted away, but he thought privately that when she forgot her affectations, and laughed out suddenly, acknowledging a hit, she was disastrously engaging.

Miss Trent, who had approached them in time to hear these last sallies, observed in a dispassionate voice: “Quite abominable!”

He smiled, his eyes dwelling appreciatively on her. She was always very simply attired; but she wore the inexpensive muslins and cambrics which she fashioned for herself with an air of elegance; and never had he seen her, even on the hottest day, presenting anything but a cool and uncrumpled appearance.

Sir Waldo, having cleared up one small misunderstanding, had contrived to get upon excellent terms with Miss Trent. His ear had been quick to catch the note of constraint in her voice when she had asked him if he was acquainted with her cousin; he fancied that she was pleased when he disclaimed any knowledge of Mr Bernard Trent; and he presently sought enlightenment of Julian.

“Bernard Trent?” said Julian. “No, I don’t think—oh, yes, I do, though! You mean General Trent’s son, don’t you? I’ve only seen him by scraps: the sort of cawker who talks flash, and is buckish about horses!” He broke off, as a thought occurred to him, and exclaimed: “Good God, is he related to Miss Trent?”

“Her cousin, I collect.”

“Lord! Well, he’s the greatest gull that ever was!” said Julian frankly. “Crony of Mountsorrel’s—at Harrow together, I fancy—and you know what a Peep o’ Day boy he is, Waldo! Always kicking up larks, and thinking himself at home to a peg, which the lord knows he ain’t, and going about town accompanied by the worst barnacles you ever clapped eyes on!”

“Yes, I know young Mountsorrel: one of the newer Tulips!”

“Tulips!” snorted Julian, with all the scorn of one who had been introduced, at his first coming-out, into the pink of Corinthian society. “Smatterers, more like! A set of roly-poly fellows who think it makes them regular dashes to box the Watch, or get swine-drunk at the Field of Blood! And as for being of the Corinthian-cut—why, most of ’em ain’t even fit to go!”

“You’re very severe!” said Sir Waldo, amused.

“Well, it was you who taught me to be!” Julian retorted. “Mountsorrel is nothing but a cod’s head, I own, but only think of the ramshackle fellows he’s in a string with! There’s Watchett, for instance: he wears more capes to his driving-coat than you do, but you’ll none of you admit him to the Four-Horse Club! Stone, too! His notion of sport is bull-baiting, and going on the spree in Tothill Fields. Then there’s Elstead: he knocks-up more horses in a season than you would in a lifetime, and flies at anything in the shape of gaming. Thinks himself slap up to the echo. Why, when were you ever seen rubbing shoulders in one of the Pall Mall hells with a set of Greek banditti?”

“Is that what young Trent does?”

“I don’t know: not a friend of mine. I haven’t seen him lately: rusticating, I daresay. He didn’t look to me like a downy one, so you may depend upon it he found himself in Tow Street.”

Armed with this information, Sir Waldo very soon found the opportunity to set himself right with Miss Trent. Wasting no subtlety, he told her cheerfully that she had misjudged him.

They were riding side by side, Julian and Tiffany a little way ahead. Mrs Underhill felt herself powerless to prevent the almost daily rides of this couple, but she did insist on Ancilla’s accompanying them, and was sometimes able to persuade her son to join the party. Occasionally Patience Chartley went with them; and, quite frequently, Sir Waldo.

Ancilla turned her head to look at him, raising her brows. “In what way, sir?”

“In laying your cousin’s follies at my door.” He smiled at her startled look, and betraying flush. “What happened to him? Lindeth tells me he’s in a string with young Mountsorrel, and his set.”

“He was used to be—he and Lord Mountsorrel were at school together—but no longer, I hope. His connection with him was ruinous.”

“Ran into Dun territory, did he? The younger men don’t come much in my way, but I’ve always understood that Mountsorrel has more money than sense, which makes him dangerous company for other greenhorns. Too many gull-catchers hang about him—not to mention the Bloods, and the Dashers, and the Care-for-Nobodies.”

“Yes. My uncle said that, or something like it. But indeed I never laid Bernard’s follies at your door, sir!”

“Didn’t you? That’s discouraging: I believed I had solved the riddle of your dislike of me.”

“I don’t dislike you. If—if yon thought me stiff when we first met it was because I dislike the set you represent!”

“I don’t think you know anything about the set I represent,” he responded coolly. “Let me assure you that it is very far removed from Mountsorrel’s, ma’am!”

“Of course—but you are—oh, the Nonesuch!” she said with a quick smile. “Mountsorrel and his friends copy you—as far as they are able—”

“I beg your pardon!” he interrupted. “They don’t—being unable! Dear me, I sound just like the Beautiful Miss Wield, don’t I? Some of them copy the Corinthian rig—in the exaggerated form I don’t affect; but my set, Miss Trent, is composed of men who were born with a natural aptitude for athletic sports. We do the thing; Mountsorrel, and his kind, are lookers-on. Don’t ask me why they should ape our fashions, when there is nothing more distasteful to them, I daresay, than the sports we enjoy, for I can’t tell you! But you may believe that the youngster anxious to excel in sporting exercises is safer amongst the Corinthians than amongst the Bond Street beaux.”