“He can’t marry the wench.”

“Will you speak to him?”

“Certainly not.”

“It is very difficult to do so, I own, but he might be brought to attend to you.”

“I can conceive of nothing more unlikely. What figure will you go to buy the girl off?”

“No sacrifice would be too great to save my son from such an entanglement! I shall rely on you, for I know nothing of such matters. Only rescue the poor boy!”

“It will go very much against the grain,” said Ravenscar grimly.

Lady Mablethorpe stiffened. “Indeed! Pray, what may you mean by that?”

“A constitutional dislike of being bled, ma’am.”

“Oh!” she said, relaxing. “You may console yourself with the reflection that it is I, not you, being bled.”

“It is a slight consolation,” he admitted.

“I have not the least doubt that you will find the girl rapacious. Sally tells me that she is at least five years older than Adrian.”

“She’s a fool if she accepts less than ten thousand,” said Ravenscar.

Lady Mablethorpe’s jaw dropped. “Max!”

He shrugged. “Adrian is not precisely a pauper, my dear aunt. There is also the title. Ten thousand.”

“It seems wicked!”

“It is wicked.”

“I should like to strangle the abominable creature!”

“Unfortunately, the laws of this land preclude your pursuing that admirable course.”

“We shall have to pay,” she said, in a hollow voice. “It would be useless, I am persuaded, to appeal to the woman.”

“You would make a great mistake to betray so much weakness.”

“Nothing would induce me to speak to such a woman! Only fancy, Max! She presides over the tables in that horrid house! You may imagine what a bold, vulgar piece she is! Sally says that all the worst rakes in town go there, and she bestows her favours on such men as that dreadful Lord Ormskirk. He is for ever at her side. I daresay she is more to him than my deluded boy dreams of. But it is useless to suggest such a thing! He fired up in an instant.”