Why, at my very first ball—” She broke off, as Nell nipped her arm, directing her eyes to the servants on the box of the carriage. “Oh, stuff! No, don’t be cross: I won’t say a word, I promise! How would it be if we took Jeremy with us? I daresay he would be very glad to go, and you may be sure he would conduct himself with all the propriety in the world, because even Giles owns that he is perfectly the gentleman!”

“Don’t be so absurd!” begged Nell. “He told you himself that he hadn’t received an invitation, and I can readily believe that he has too much propriety to go to the party without one. Besides, you know very well I wouldn’t invite him when it is what Giles would particularly dislike.”

Letty accepted this rebuff philosophically, saying in a resigned tone: “No, I didn’t think you would. Well, what is to be done? Pray don’t say you cannot go if Giles does not, for of all the dowdy notions—!”

Nell flushed. “No such thing! I mean, I haven’t the remotest intention of saying such a thing! Only I can’t immediately think of any gentleman whom I—” She stopped, as her troubled gaze alighted on two horsemen, riding easily towards them. Her eyes brightened; she exclaimed: “Dysart!”

“The very man!” declared Letty enthusiastically. “Now you may be easy!”

This optimism, however, seemed for several minutes to have been ill-founded. The Viscount, who was bestriding a nervous young blood-chestnut few men would have cared to exercise in the Park at an hour when it was thronged with traffic, responded readily enough to his sister’s signal, bringing his reluctant mount up to the barouche, and holding it there with all the apparent ease of an accomplished horseman; but when she asked him if he had received an invitation to the Beadings’ masquerade, he replied: “Ay, but I don’t mean to go.”

“Oh, Dy, you didn’t refuse?” Nell said anxiously.