“It doesn’t signify in the least,” responded Miss Milborne. “But when you say that you have been dangling at my shoestrings ever since you first saw me, it is the greatest untruth ever I heard!”

“At all events, I liked you better than any other girl I knew!” said the Viscount desperately.

Miss Milborne regarded him in a reminiscent way which he found singularly unnerving. “No, I don’t think you did,” she said at last. “In fact, if you had a preference, I think it was for Hero Wantage.”

“Hero?” exclaimed the Viscount. “No, dash it all, Bella, I never thought of Hero in all my life. I swear I didn’t!”

“No, I know that,” said Miss Milborne impatiently, “but when we were children you did like her more than you liked me, or Cassy, or Eudora, or Sophy, because she used to fetch and carry for you, and pretend she didn’t mind when she got hurt by your horrid cricket balls. She was only a baby, or she would have seen what an odious boy you were. For you were, Sherry, you know you were!”

Roused, the Viscount said, with feeling: “I’ll swear I wasn’t half as odious as the Bagshot girls! Lord, Bella, do you remember the way that little cat, Sophy, used to run and tell tales about the rest of us to her mother?”

“Not about me,” said Miss Milborne coldly. “There was nothing to tell.” She perceived that her reminiscent mood had infected the Viscount, the gleam in his eye warning her that some quite undesirable recollections were stirring in his memory, and made haste to recall him to the present. “Not that it signifies, I’m sure. The truth is we should not suit, Sherry. Indeed, I am deeply sensible of the honour you have done me, but — ”