“I don’t know that. Certainly politics have not come in my way yet.”
“You must bring him in, Serena. The Party needs new blood.”
“Not I!” she returned lightly. “How odious it would be of me to try to push him into what he does not care for!”
“You will do it, nevertheless.”
“Do you care to wager on that chance?”
“It would be robbing you. You will never be able to keep your talents buried.” He raised his glass to his lips, and over it looked at the Major. “Serena was made to be a political hostess, you know. Can you subdue her? I doubt it.”
“She knows I would never try to do so.”
“Good God!” said Rotherham. “I hope you are not serious! The picture you conjure up is quite horrifying, believe me!”
“And I hope that Hector knows that you arc talking nonsense!” Serena said, stretching out her hand to the Major, and bestowing her most brilliant smile upon him.
He took the hand, and kissed it. “Of course I do! And you know that whatever you wish me to do I shall like to do!” he said laughingly.
Rotherham sipped his wine, watching this by-play with unexpected approval in his face. The second course had come to an end, and, in obedience to a sign from Serena, the servants had left the room. Fanny picked up her fan, but before she could rise, Serena said: “Have I your consent and approval, Ivo?”
“Certainly—unless I discover that the Major has a wife in Spain, or some other such trifling impediment. When do you propose to be married?”
“It cannot be until I am out of mourning. I don’t feel it would be proper even to announce the engagement at this present.”
“Most improper. It will be as well, however, since the control of your fortune will pass from my hands to his, if I have some talk with him on this subject.”
“Yes, pray do!” she said cordially. “And I wish you will tell me what I may count on, Ivo! I never made the least inquiry, you know, because to know the precise sum I might have enjoyed, but for that abominable Trust, would have made my situation the more insupportable.”
“About ten thousand a year,” he replied indifferently.
“Ten thousand a year?” repeated the Major, in an appalled voice.
Rotherham glanced at him across the table. “You may call it that. It is not possible to be quite exact. It is derived from several sources, which I shall presently explain to you.”
“But—Good God, how can this be? I knew, of course, that some disparity between our fortunes there must be, but this—!”
“I own, I had not thought it would be as much,” said Serena, mildly surprised.
“But there must have been an entail!” the Major exclaimed, as though snatching at a straw of hope. “Such an income as that represents—” He broke off, in the throes of calculation.
“Something in the region of two hundred thousand,” supplied Rotherham helpfully. “All that belongs to the Carlow family naturally goes with the title. This fortune was inherited by the late Earl from his mother, and belonged absolutely to himself.”
“Yes, I knew that,” said Serena. “Papa always told me I should inherit my grandmother’s property, but I supposed it to be a comfortable independence merely. I call this a very respectable fortune, don’t you, Fanny?”
“I should not know what to do with the half of it!” Fanny said, awed.
Rotherham smiled. “Serena will know. The strongest likelihood is that she will run into debt.”
“I should wish it to be tied up!”
These words, vehemently uttered, made Serena look at the Major in great surprise. “Why, what can you mean, love? You can’t suppose I shall do anything so absurd as to run into debt! I assure you I am not so improvident! Rotherham, I have not the remotest guess why you should laugh in that detestable way! I was never in debt in my life!”
He threw her a glance of mockery. “You must forgive me, Serena! I wish you will tell me how you contrived, on the seven hundred pounds a year which I, in my ignorance, thought you spent on your attire, to maintain that expensive stable of yours.”
“You know very well that Papa bought all my horses!” she said.
“Just so,” he agreed. “Now you will be obliged to buy your own.”
“Which I can well afford to do, and remain excellently mounted!”
“Certainly you can, but you will have to take care, you know! It won’t do to be paying nine hundred guineas for some showy-looking bay you are glad to part with on any terms at the end of your first day out on him.”
Wrath flamed in her eyes and her cheeks. “Were you never taken in over a horse?” she demanded.
“Yes,” he said reflectively. “But I can’t recall that I ever paid a fancy price for an animal which—”
“Be quiet!” she shot at him. “All those years ago—when I was still green—! Only you would cast it up at me still, Rotherham! Do I make mistakes now? Do I?”
“Oh, not as bad as that one!” he said. “I’m prepared to bet a large sum on your having paid too much for that mare I saw at Milverley, but—”
She was on her feet. “If you dare—if you dare tell me again she’s too short in the back—!”
“Serena, for heaven’s sake!” begged the Major. “You are distressing Lady Spenborough! What the deuce does it matter if Lord Rotherham chooses to criticize the mare?”
She paid not the slightest heed, but drove home her challenge. “Well, my lord? Well?”
“Don’t try to browbeat me, my girl!” he replied. “I tell you again, too short in the back!” He looked at her, his eyes glinting. “And you know it!”
She bit her lip. Her eyes strove with his for a moment or two, but suddenly she burst into laughter, and sat down again. “Of all the odious creatures—! Perhaps she is a trifle too short in the back—but only a trifle! You need not have been so unhandsome as to provoke me into exposing myself to my betrothed!”
The glint was still in his eyes, but he said: “The temptation was irresistible to see whether you would take the fly. Console yourself with the reflection that you never look more magnificent than when in a rage!”
“Thank you! I don’t admire myself in that state! What were we saying, before we fell into this foolish dispute?”
“Major Kirkby had expressed a desire that your fortune should be tied up. If I am not to provoke you again, I will refrain from applauding so wise a suggestion.”
“You are mistaken,” the Major said. “There was no thought in my head of keeping Serena out of debt! I should wish it—or the better part of it, at all events!—to be tied up in such a way that neither she nor I can benefit by it!”
“But, my dearest Hector!” cried Serena. “You must be mad!”
“I am not mad. You haven’t considered, my darling! Do you realize that your fortune is almost ten times the size of mine?”
“Is it?” she said. “Does that signify? Are you afraid that people will say you married me for my money? Why should you care for that, when you know it to be untrue?”
“Not only that! Serena, cannot you see how intolerable my position must be?”
“No, how should it be so? If I used it to alter your way of life, of course it would be quite horrid for you, but I promise you I shall not! It will be in your hands, not in mine, so if I should run mad suddenly, and wish to purchase a palace, or some such thing, it will be out of my power to do so.”
He gave a laugh that had something of a groan in it. “Oh, my dear, you don’t see! But Lord Rotherham must!”
“Oh, yes! Shall I refuse my consent to your marriage?”
“I wish to God you would!”
“Well, so do not I!” said Serena. “Hector, I do see, but indeed you are too quixotic! I daresay we shan’t spend it—not all of it, I mean—but why should I give it up? Besides, who is to have it if we don’t? Rotherham? My cousin? You can’t expect me to do anything so crackbrained as to abandon what is my own to them or to anyone!”