Hyacinth stared at her mother as if she’d sprouted an extra head. “Have you gone mad? You know his reputation as well as I.”

Violet brushed that aside instantly. “His reputation won’t matter once you’re married.”

“It would if he continued to consort with opera singers and the like.”

“He wouldn’t,” Violet said, waving her hand dismissively.

“How could you possibly know that?”

Violet paused for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it’s a feeling I have.”

“Mother,” Hyacinth said with a great show of solicitude, “you know I love you dearly-”

“Why is it,” Violet pondered, “that I have come to expect nothing good when I hear a sentence beginning in that manner?”

“But,” Hyacinth cut in, “you must forgive me if I decline to marry someone based upon a feeling you might or might not have.”

Violet sipped her tea with rather impressive nonchalance. “It’s the next best thing to a feeling you might have. And if I may say so myself, my feelings on these things tend to be right on the mark.” At Hyacinth’s dry expression, she added, “I haven’t been wrong yet.”

Well, that was true, Hyacinth had to acknowledge. To herself, of course. If she actually admitted as much out loud, her mother would take that as a carte blanche to pursue Mr. St. Clair until he ran screaming for the trees.

“Mother,” Hyacinth said, pausing for slightly longer than normal to steal a bit of time to organize her thoughts, “I am not going to chase after Mr. St. Clair. He’s not at all the right sort of man for me.”

“I’m not certain you’d know the right sort of man for you if he arrived on our doorstep riding an elephant.”

“I would think the elephant would be a fairly good indication that I ought to look elsewhere.”

“Hyacinth.”

“And besides that,” Hyacinth added, thinking about the way Mr. St. Clair always seemed to look at her in that vaguely condescending manner of his, “I don’t think he likes me very much.”