This bit of calculation sent Justin's temper, not placid under the best of conditions, simmering toward the boiling point. Its object could count herself fortunate if a tongue-lashing was the worst she received when he caught up with her. Although she had turned seventeen two or three months ago, and was properly considered a young lady now, she acted like a hoyden and it was as a hoyden that he would treat her. The idea of taking the flat of his hand to her backside did something to lessen his annoyance. By God, she had challenged his authority once too often, and this time he was going to make certain personally that she took the consequences! She would find dealing with him a very different kettle of fish from wrapping Charles Stanton, his woolly-headed, softhearted secretary, around her little finger.

This was the third time in eight months that she had run away from school-a very select and exclusive school into which it had cost him considerable effort to get her, thanks to her past record of being politely requested to leave one establishment after another for her pranks. But, considering her tender sex and age, and orphaned state (and his own lack of inclination to trouble himself about the matter), he had been, up to now, amazingly tolerant of her misdeeds. But this-this was the last straw. Returning from an evening at White's, he had been greeted by Ames, his butler, with the intelligence that an urgent message had arrived while he was out: his ward, it seemed, had been kidnapped by gypsies! Properly alarmed (although already doubting), he had driven at once to Miss Chevington's Academy for Select Young Ladies in Bath, only to discover by dint of exhaustive questioning, that the whole thing was a hoax.