Mr Ravenscar was unmoved. “He’ll think it a good many times for the next five or six years. How old is the cub?”

“Considering you are one of his trustees, you surely know that he is not yet twenty-one!”

“Forbid the banns, then,” recommended Mr Ravenscar flippantly.

“I wish you will be serious! This is no laughing matter! He will be of age in a couple of months now! And before we know where we are we shall have him married to some scheming hussy.”

“I should think it extremely unlikely, ma’am. Let the boy alone. Damme, he must cut his milk teeth sometime!”

Lady Mablethorpe flushed angrily. “It is all very well for you to stand there, talking in that odious way, as though you did not care a fig, but—”

“I’m only responsible for his fortune,” he said.

“I might have known you would have come here only to be disagreeable! Wash your hands of my poor boy by all means: I’m sure it’s only what I expected. But don’t blame me if he contracts the most shocking misalliance!”

“Who is the girl?” asked Mr Ravenscar.

“A creature—oh, a hussy—out of a gaming-house!”

“What?” demanded Ravenscar incredulously.

“I thought you would not be quite so cool when you heard the full sum of it!” said her ladyship, with a certain morbid satisfaction. “I was never so appalled in my life as when I heard of it! I went immediately to your house. Something must be done, Max!”

He shrugged. “Oh, let him amuse himself! It don’t signify. She may cost him less than an opera-dancer.”

“She will cost him a great deal more!” said her ladyship tartly. “He means to marry the creature!”

“Nonsense! He’s not such a fool. One does not marry women out of gaming-houses.”

“I wish you will tell him so, for he will pay no heed to anything I say. He will have us believe that the girl is quite something out of the common way, if you please.