"I don't know," he replied. "I only know that if you did so at my request it would be against your will. If you did not care to go without me, well that would be different."
Her eyes danced; she looked half roguish, half rueful, and murmured coaxingly: "Oh, confound you, Charles, you make me seem the veriest wretch! Don't look so gravely at me! I swear I would rather stay at home with you than go to the most romantic of picnics. But when -you can't be with me, what the devil am I to do?"
She peeped at him under her lashes; he was obliged to laugh, even though there was very little laughter in his heart.
Judith, when she heard of the famous picnic, was aghast. She could not understand how Mrs Fisher could have permitted her niece to take part in such an expedition. The reason was not far to seek: Mrs Fisher was dreaming of bridals. Young people, she said, often behaved foolishly, and indeed she had scolded Lucy for her thoughtlessness, but she dared say there was no harm done, after all.
Judith blamed Barbara for the whole, and wondered how long Charles would bear with her capriciousness.
"I have always felt a little sorry for Bab Alastair," said the Duchess of Richmond once, in her quiet way. "Her mama died when Harry was born, and that is a very sad thing for a girl, you know. I am afraid the late Lord Vidal was rather dissolute, and Bab grew up without that refining influence which her mama must have exercised. She has never been in the way of being checked, and was unfortunate in being made a pet of by her papa."
"Oh!" exclaimed Judith. "Could that have done harm to a daughter's character?"
"The melancholy truth was, my dear, that Lord Vidal's principles were not high, and he did not scruple to instil into Bab his own cynical notions. You will not repeat it, but Lord Vidal's household was apt to include females of whose very existence young girls should be unaware."
"But her grandparents!"
"Oh yes, but, you see, Lord Vidal was not always upon terms with his father," said her Grace. "And the Duchess was not of an age to dance attendance upon a flighty granddaughter. She was most distressed at that wretched marriage, I know. There can never have been a more shocking business! Childe was a man whose reputation, whose whole manner of life - but I am talking of the dead, and indeed have said too much already."