‘Be careful how you address, this gentleman,’ she counselled Abrane. ‘The name is not Woodier, I know. It must be the right name or none.’
Livia’s fairest smile received them. She heard the captain accosting the child of luck as Mr. Woodier, and she made a rustle in rising to take Fleetwood’s arm.
‘We haven’t dined, we have to sup,’ said he.
‘You are released at the end of the lamps. You redeem your ring, Russett, and I will restore it. I have to tell you, Henrietta is here to-morrow.’
‘She might be in a better place.’
‘The place where she is to be seen is not generally undervalued by men. It is not her fault that she is absent. The admiral was persuaded to go and attend those cavalry manoeuvres with the Grand Duke, to whom he had been civil when in command of the Mediterranean squadron. You know, the admiral believes he has military—I mean soldierly-genius; and the delusion may have given him wholesome exercise and helped him to forget his gout. So far, Henrietta will have been satisfied. She cannot have found much amusement among dusty troopers or at that court at Carlsruhe. Our French milliner there has helped in retarding her quite against her will. She has had to choose a balldress for the raw mountain-girl they have with them, and get her fitted, and it’s a task! Why take her to the ball? But the admiral’s infatuated with this girl, and won’t hear of her exclusion—because, he says, she understands a field of battle; and the Ducal party have taken to her. Ah, Russett, you should not have flown! No harm, only Henrietta does require a trifle of management. She writes, that she is sure of you for the night at the Schloss.’
‘Why, ma’am?’
‘You have given your word. “He never breaks his lightest word,” she says.’
‘It sounds like the beginning of respect.’
‘The rarest thing men teach women to feel for them!’