Sherry shook his cousin off. “Revesby,” he said, eyeing Sir Montagu with a measuring glance. “I’d like to have the chance to pay off a certain score with you, but I fancy Ferdy’s right, and it ain’t necessary. Wrotham is searching for you, and he’s likely to fetch up here at any minute. You’re a dead man, Revesby!”
“George is searching for me?” said Miss Milborne faintly. “Oh, good heavens!”
“Went off in one of his pets as soon as he heard you wasn’t home,” said Ferdy. “Said he’d call on Revesby to answer for his villainy. Good God, I’m dashed if that Greek thing hasn’t got after Monty too, Sherry! Very remarkable circumstance, ’pon my soul it is!”
“What the devil is all this about a dashed Greek?” demanded Sherry. “George was trying to tell me about him, but I’m hanged if I could make head or tail of it! All I know is, I’m not acquainted with any Greeks, and what’s more I don’t want to be!”
“It ain’t a thing you’re acquainted with, dear old boy. Duke knows what it is. Comes up behind a fellow when he ain’t expecting it. Thought it was after me, but it turns out to be Monty. Good thing.”
“Yes, but what is it?”
Mr Tarleton said, with a quiver of amusement in his voice: “I fancy he means Nemesis.”
“That’s it!” Ferdy said, looking at him with respect. “Nemesis! You know him too?”
“Well, it’s more than I do!” declared Sherry. “What’s more, whoever he is, he had nothing to do with my coming to Bath!”
“Not, ‘he’,” murmured Mr Tarleton, who was beginning to feel his years. “Goddess of retribution. The daughter, according to Hesiod, of Night.”
“Was she, though?” said Ferdy. “Well, by Jove! Daughter of who?”
“Night,” repeated Mr Tarleton.
Ferdy looked a little dubious. “Seems a queer start, but I dare say you’re right. Come to think of it, devilish rum ’uns, all those old Greeks.”
His cousin regarded him with a surprise not wholly free from disapproval. “Well, I never knew you was bookish before, Ferdy!” he said.
“Learned it at Eton,” Ferdy said, with a deprecating cough. “Point is, thought the thing was after me. Turns out it was after Monty. Gave him that wisty castor, and set George on to his track. All the same, Sherry, not sure it is such a good thing, now I come to think of it. Don’t want George to be obliged to fly the country. Tell you what: let Monty go before George arrives! Pity, in some ways, but there it is!”
Sherry had raised his head, and was listening to an unmistakable sound. “Too late!” he said, with a little laugh. “Lay you any money this is George!”
So indeed it proved to be. A bare couple of minutes later, George came striding into the coffee-room, with Mr Ringwood at his heels. He checked on the threshold. “Sherry!” he ejaculated. “Good God, you here? What the — Kitten!”
Mr Ringwood put up his glass. “Well, upon my word!” he said, mildly astonished. “Devilish queer place to run into you people! Your very obedient — Kitten! You and Sherry come here on your honeymoon?”
Hero clapped both his hands tightly. “Dear Gil! I am so glad to see you again! I have been in such a scrape! I was carried off by poor Mr Tarleton there, quite by mistake; and Isabella got into a scrape too, through Sir Montagu Revesby; but then Sherry came, and everything is all right and tight — I mean, everything has ended happily!”
Lord Wrotham, fastening on to the one point in this ingenuous explanation which concerned him, looked round for his quarry, perceived him, and said: “Ah!”
Sir Montagu, a perfectly ghastly smile writhing on his lips, said: “Lady Sheringham mistakes — I can explain — the most lamentable accident — !”
“Yes?” said George, stripping off his driving-gloves, taking them in his right hand, and advancing upon Sir Montagu. “You got Miss Milborne into a scrape, and you fancy you can explain it, do you? Not to my satisfaction, Revesby!”
“No, you don’t, George!” suddenly said Mr Ringwood, grasping his lordship’s right wrist. “By the looks of it, someone’s been before you! Let be, man, let be!”
“By God, Gil, if you don’t let me go — ! I’ve been wanting an excuse to call that fellow out these two months, and if you think you or anyone can stop me now I’ve got it — ”
“George!” said Miss Milborne compellingly.
Lord Wrotham’s eyes turned swiftly towards her.
“George!” said Miss Milborne again, rather pale, but meeting his gaze squarely. “If you call him out, I will not marry you!”
“Isabella!” uttered his lordship, trembling. “Do you mean — can you mean — ?”
Mr Ringwood let him go, but not before he had thoughtfully removed the gloves from his suddenly slackened grasp.
“Oh, George, for heaven’s sake, take me home!” begged Miss Milborne, her admirably modulated voice breaking. “I’m so tired, and hungry, and I never cared a rap for that odious man, no, nor for Severn either, or Sherry, or anyone save yourself, and I’m sure I don’t know why I care for you, for you are just as odious as any of them, only I do, and I will marry you tomorrow, if you like!”
“If I like!” said his lordship thickly, and enveloped her in a crushing embrace.
Mr Ringwood, observing his attention to be distracted from Sir Montagu, touched that pallid gentleman on the shoulder, and nodded significantly towards the door. Ferdy, ever helpful, picked up his hat and greatcoat, and silently handed them to him. Sir Montagu clutched them thankfully, and made good his escape.
“And the best of it is,” remarked Sherry, closing the door, and setting his shoulders to it, “he won’t dare show his face in town for months, in case he should run into George, and George’s feelings should get the better of him.”
“Have you let that fellow go?” George demanded, turning his head.
“Yes, but really it is much better that he should go,” said Hero soothingly. “For if you were to shoot him, you would have to leave the country, and then you could not marry Isabella. And he will not dare say a word about what happened tonight, because of what we might say about his wounding poor Mr Tarleton. And besides that, if he spread a horrid scandal, I dare say Sherry would not mind my telling people about his baby, for he has one, you know, and he would not give its mother a penny to provide for it, and it is Sherry who has to do so, which is a great deal too bad, for it is not Sherry’s baby! Indeed, I wish it was — at least, I mean I wish it was mine, because it is the dearest little thing!” A thought occurred to her; her eyes lit up; and she turned impulsively towards Sherry. “Oh, Sherry, do you think — ”
“Yes!” said his lordship hastily. “Yes, I do, Kitten, but not now, for the lord’s sake!”
“Bad ton!” explained Ferdy kindly. “Not quite the thing! That fellow Tarleton present: very tolerable sort of a fellow, but almost a stranger! Talk it over later!”
“No, by God, you won’t!” said his lordship forcibly.
“Eh?” said Ferdy. “Good heavens! No, by God, so I won’t!”