She withdrew her hand, but he caught it, and held it, saying, with a searching look: “Do you, Mama? Did you, perhaps, wish me to offer for Hetta, nine years ago? Would you have liked her to have been your daughter-in-law?”

“What a very odd notion you have of me, my love! I hope I am not such a pea-goose as to have wished you to marry any girl for whom you had formed no lasting passion! To be sure, I have a great regard for Hetta, but I daresay you would not have suited. In any event, that has been past history for years, and nothing is such a bad bore as to be recalling it! I promise you, I shall welcome the bride you do choose at last with as much pleasure as I shall attend Hetta’s wedding to the man of her choice.”

“What, to the pattern-card whose name you can’t remember? Are the Silverdales at Inglehurst? I haven’t seen Hetta in town for weeks, but from what she told me when we met at the Castlereaghs’ ball I had supposed that she must by now have been fixed at Worthing, poor girl!”

“Lady Silverdale,” said his mother, in an expressionless voice, “finding that the only lodging she could tolerate in Worthing was not available this summer, has recollected that the sea-air always makes her bilious, and has chosen to retire to Inglehurst rather than to seek a lodging at some other resort.”

“What an abominable woman she is!” said the Viscount cheerfully. “Oh, well! I daresay Hetta will be better off with her pattern-card! I’ll drop in at Inglehurst tomorrow, on my way back to London, and try to discover what this fellow, Nether-what’s-it, is really like!”

Slightly taken aback, Lady Wroxton said, in mild expostulation: “My dear boy, you cannot, surely, question Hetta about him?”

“Lord, yes! of course I can!” said the Viscount. “There are no secrets between Hetta and me, Mama, any more than there are between Griselda and me—in fact,” he added, subjecting this confident assertion to consideration, “far fewer!”