“I am sure I do not know how you will contrive to do so.”
“That is why I have come to you. Isabella, though he will not listen to Gil or Ferdy, George will listen to you! Oh, will you be so very obliging as to send for him, and make him promise he won’t fight Sherry? Please, Isabella, will you do that for me?”
Miss Milborne rose to her feet somewhat suddenly. “I send for George?” she repeated, in stupefied tones “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“No, of course I have not! You must know that there can be nothing he would not do for your sake! You have only to beg him — ”
“I would sooner die an old maid!”
Startled by the suppressed passion in the Beauty’s voice, Hero could only blink at her in surprise. Miss Milborne pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. “Upon my word, I had not thought it possible! So I am to send for George, and to supplicate him not to engage in a duel! After he has been making shameless love to you! Nothing — nothing could prevail upon me to do it! I am astonished you should ask it of me! Pray tell me why you, who are on such intimate terms with him, do not supplicate George yourself! I am persuaded your words must carry quite as much weight with him as mine. More, I dare say!”
Hero sprang up, her hands tightly locked together within her ermine muff, quite as angry a flush as Isabella’s in her cheeks. “You are right! I will go to George! He does not make shameless love to me; no, for he has no love for me! but he is fond of me, a little, and he did say he would not wish to make me unhappy! I do not know how I can have been so foolish as to think that you would help me, for there is nothing behind your beauty but vanity and spite, Isabella!”
With these words she fairly ran from the room, and down the stairs, letting herself out of the front door, and shutting it behind her with a slam. She entered her barouche, and told the surprised footman to direct the coachman to drive to Lord Wrotham’s lodging.
His lordship was at home, and had barely time to straighten his neckcloth, and run a hand over his tumbled locks before his visitor came tempestuously into the room.
“George!” Hero said, casting her muff on to a chair, and advancing upon him with both hands stretched out.
“My dear Lady Sheringham!” George said, bowing formally, one eye on the wooden countenance of his servant.
This individual reluctantly withdrew from the room, just as Hero cried sharply: “Oh, don’t, George! I am in such distress!”
He caught her hands, and held them warmly. “No, no, but Kitten, you must think what my man would imagine! You should not have come here!”
“No, I know I should not, but what else could I do? for I know very well you would not come to Half Moon Street.”
“Hardly!”
“Then you see that I was obliged to come!”
He glanced quickly out of the window, perceived the crest on the panel of her barouche, and exclaimed: “In your own carriage! Kitten, you are incorrigible! Good God, if Sherry gets wind of this there’ll be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot!”
“How can it signify? Nothing could be worse than it is at this moment! George, you must not meet Sherry!”
“I shall certainly do so, however.”
She clasped the lapels of his coat, giving him a little shake. “No, I say you shall not! George, you know it was very wrong of us, although we meant no harm. Please, George, beg Sherry’s pardon, and let us all be comfortable again!”
He shook his head obstinately. “I have never drawn back yet from an engagement, and by God, I will not do so now!”
“Yes, but, George, this time — ”
“Besides, I’m dashed if I’ll apologize for kissing you! I liked it excessively!” said George brazenly. “If Sherry had a grain of sense, he’d know it didn’t mean a thing, too!”
“George, you said you would not wish to make me unhappy!” Hero said desperately.
“No, by Jove, not for the world!”
“But don’t you see, you stupid creature, that if you kill Sherry I shall be so unhappy I shall die?” Hero cried.
“Oh, I’m not going to kill Sherry!” said his lordship carelessly. “What put that into your head?”
She released his coat, and stood staring at him. “But they told me — Gil and Ferdy — ”
“You don’t mean that that brace of gudgeons blabbed the whole thing to you?” George ejaculated.
“But what else could they do, when they thought you meant to kill Sherry?”
“Pooh! nonsense! Who said anything about killing anyone? Good God, Sherry’s a friend of mine!”
“Yes, but — but if you do not mean to beg his pardon, I am much afraid he will insist on fighting you,” said Hero.
“Oh, lord, yes! He’s a regular good ’un, Sherry!” said George, with the utmost cordiality.
Hero regarded him blankly. “George, if you mean to wound Sherry, I would much, much rather you did not!”
“No, no, I won’t hurt a hair of his head!” he assured her. “I shall delope.”
“What is that, please?”
“Oh! — fire into the air!”
“Well, George, indeed I am much obliged to you, but would it not be better not to meet Sherry at all?”
“Hang it, no! We must meet! He challenged me!”
“Yes, I know, but — George, if you mean to fire into the air, it seems to me that Sherry may very likely kill you!”
“Sherry? At twenty-five yards?” said George. “Wouldn’t hit a haystack at that range! That’s why I chose it. Not but what I don’t care if he does put a bullet through me,” he added, his brow clouding suddenly.
“Well, I care!” said Hero tartly. “He would have to fly the country, and what would become of me then?”
George’s gloom vanished in a grin. “Oh, Kitten, you horrid little wretch! Don’t tease yourself! He won’t hit me.”
“You don’t feel that I had better warn him you mean to fire in the air?” she asked anxiously.
He took her by the shoulders, and gave her a shake. “You dare tell Sherry one word about this!” he said. “If he knew what you’d done he’d be fit to murder the pair of us! Besides, you’ve no business to be mixed up in it! You must go home. And not a word to a soul, mind!”
“But I must tell Gil — ”
“No, you must not! I’ll settle Gil! Deserves to be called out himself for frightening you like this!”
“Oh, no, pray don’t do that, George!” she said hastily.
“Wouldn’t be any use if I did: there’s no getting Gil out at all. But you know, Kitten, I do think you should have known I wouldn’t hurt Sherry!”
“To tell you the truth,” she confided. “I did not think so, until Gil and Ferdy came to see me. But how odious it was of you to lead them to think you meant to kill him! You are quite abominable, George, you know you are!”
He admitted it, but pleaded that Gil and Ferdy had been in such a pucker that he could not help himself. Hero laughed at this; he escorted her out to her barouche, and they parted on the best of terms. Hero drove back to Half Moon Street, and George sent round a note to Mr Ringwood’s lodging, desiring him to stop making a cake of himself. Mr Ringwood showed this cryptic missive to Mr Fakenham, and both gentlemen came to the conclusion that whatever had been the outcome of Miss Milborne’s intervention George had no intention of killing Sherry on the morrow.
Sherry, meanwhile, had been spending a singularly depressing morning with his lawyer. He had been making his Will, a task that engendered in him such a mood of melancholy that he dispatched a note to Sir Montagu Revesby, excusing himself from making one of a card party that evening, and would have spent the evening by his own fireside had it not occurred to him that such tame behaviour might be thought to augur a disinclination (to put it no higher) to meet Lord Wrotham upon the morrow. So instead of indulging his gloomy reflections in his wife’s drawing-room he took her to the theatre, and, since the piece was a lively one, contrived to be tolerably amused. Hero enjoyed herself hugely, a circumstance which led his lordship to suppose that she could not be aware of his assignation at Westbourn Green. He naturally would not have dreamed of mentioning such a matter to her, but he could not help thinking that it might come as a severe shock to her if his lifeless corpse were to be borne into the house just as she was sitting down to breakfast, so he tried to drop her a hint.