Cotillion

‘I can’t conceive why you should have done so!’

‘Oh, well! Cousin of yours!’ said Freddy, his attention on his quizzing-glass, which he was polishing with his handkerchief.

‘To be sure, yes! I do not object to his knowing, if he will not spread it about, for I have a particular kindness for him. He is a delightful man, don’t you think, Freddy?’

‘Very pleasant fellow,’ agreed Freddy.

‘Meg says his manners have a truly Gallic polish. She is in transports over him! There is just that sportive playfulness, you know, which Englishmen, in general, have not. And a most superior understanding!’

‘Shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Freddy. ‘In fact, I’m dashed sure he has!’

She said, a little shyly: ‘You can’t conceive how happy it makes me to have so respectable a relation! It is not quite comfortable, you know, to have no one of one’s own family!’

‘No, I daresay it ain’t,’ said Freddy, his ready sympathy stirred. ‘Not but what you might have the better part of my relations, and welcome! However, I see what you mean, Kit. Thing is—no wish to interfere, but no use thinking you’re up to snuff yet, my dear girl, because you ain’t! Won’t do for you to encourage the Chevalier to dangle after you. Don’t want to be one of the on-dits of town!’

‘Oh, no, indeed I don’t!’ she replied, laughing. ‘But you quite mistake the matter, Freddy! Camille’s behaviour is unexceptionable! I daresay you may be thinking of Meg’s having invited him to go with us to the Argyll Rooms, but I assure you that was quite an extraordinary happening! I could see you did not like it above half, but remember! we are first cousins, and had then but just

met again after so many years! It was very natural that he should call rather frequently to see me, at the outset. I don’t think I have met him, save in company, since that evening.’

Freddy, who had taken his own simple measures to discourage the Chevalier’s visits to Berkeley Square, looked faintly gratified. It had never before fallen to his lot to steer an inexperienced damsel past the shoals of her first London season, and it was not a task for which he felt himself to be fitted; but an intimate knowledge of his elder sister had not filled him with confidence in her discretion. He had a hazy idea that having brought Kitty to town it behoved him to keep an eye on her. He had taught her the steps of the quadrille; he had done considerable violence to his feelings by escorting both her and Meg to a masked ball at the Pantheon, so that she might, in this large and extremely mixed assembly, learn to dance creditably in public; he had requested his mother to procure a voucher for her, admitting her to Almack’s, and had forbidden her straitly to accept any invitation to waltz there; he had dissuaded her from buying a jockey-bonnet of lilac silk, much admired by Meg; and he had taken strong exception to a pair of bright red Morocco slippers, saying in a resigned tone that it seemed to him that he would be obliged to accompany her the next time she went shopping. ‘And don’t keep on telling me that they’re Wellington slippers, because if that’s what they said in the shop they were bamboozling you!’ he said, with some severity. ‘Dash it, the Duke’s a devilish well-dressed man, and he wouldn’t make such a figure of himself!’

These were small matters, and on all questions of taste and fashion Mr Standen was well qualified to advise. Miss Charing’s charming French cousin was a more serious problem, and one which considerably exercised his mind.

It was Mr Stonehouse who was responsible for arousing certain suspicions in his breast. Mr Stonehouse had lately attended a rout-party at the French Embassy, and could not recall that he had seen the Chevalier at this select gathering. Those who most deplored Mr Standen’s lack of scholarship would not have called in question his worldly knowledge. He knew that the scion of a noble French house should have been present upon this occasion. There might be several reasons to account for his absence; but Mr Standen remembered that he had not liked the Chevalier’s waistcoat, and he asked Mr Westruther where he had met him.

‘Now, where did I first meet him?’ pondered Jack, his mouth grave, and his eyes alight. ‘Was it at Wooler’s, or was it in Bennett Street?’

Freddy, although he occasionally played hazard at Watier’s, was not a gamester, but he perfectly understood the significance of his cousin’s answer. Mr Westruther had named two of London’s gaming-hells. With strong indignation, he demanded: ‘Good God, Jack, is the fellow an ivory-turner?’

Mr Westruther laughed. ‘A very skilful one, Freddy!’

‘A Greek?’

Mr Westruther seemed surprised. ‘No, a Frenchman, surely?’

But Freddy was in no mood for such trifling. ‘That card will win no trick! Come, now! A Captain Sharp?’

‘My dear Freddy, I have not the least reason to suppose it! Let us rather say, a first-rate player!’

Mr Standen’s amiable countenance hardened. After staring fixedly at his cousin for a moment, he said with unusual dryness: ‘Playing a deep game, ain’t you, coz?’

‘Why, what can you mean?’ said Jack, raising his brows.

‘Not sure,’ said Mr Standen cautiously. ‘Don’t know why you introduced the fellow to Kit.’

‘You must be a trifle disguised,’ said Mr Westruther, regarding him with concern. ‘You have forgotten that Kitty was desirous of meeting her French connections. Isn’t she pleased with him? I was so sure she must be! A personable and a charming creature—you don’t agree?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Freddy replied. ‘Very pleasant fellow. Thing is, I’ve a notion there’s something havey-cavey about him, and I don’t like it.’

Mr Westruther’s broad shoulders shook. ‘He offends your sense of the respectable, coz? Alas! Now, I find him so amusing! But I am not, of course, one of the stiff Standens.’

‘No, and you ain’t engaged to Kit!’ retorted Freddy, nettled.

‘Very true. Are you?’ said Jack sweetly.

‘Seems to me,’ said Freddy, recovering after a moment from the effect of this undoubted double, ‘that it’s you who are disguised!’

He thought it prudent to say no more to his cousin, but to pursue his own investigations. These led him in due course to seek counsel of his father, whom he met one day in St James’s Street, and who exhibited great surprise at seeing him, saying that he had supposed him to have gone out of town again. But this shaft went wide. Freddy eyed his satirical parent in mild bewilderment, and said reasonably: ‘Can’t have thought that, sir! Dash it, met you at Meg’s two nights ago!’