This promise threw Miss Blackburn into agitation. As she accompanied Arabella upstairs, she whispered: “My dear Miss Tallant, how could you? And now he means to call on you, and you have told him—oh dear, oh dear, what would your Mama say?”
“Pooh!” returned Arabella, brazening it out. “If he is indeed a rich man, he will not care a fig, or think of it again!”
“ If he is—Good gracious, Miss Tallant, he must be one of the wealthiest men in the country! When I collected that he was in very truth Mr. Beaumaris I nearly swooned where I stood!”
“Well,” said the pot-valiant Arabella, “if he is so very grand and important you may depend upon it he has not the least intention of calling on me in town. And I am sure I hope he will not, for he is an odious person!”
She refused to be moved from this stand, or even to acknowledge that in Mr. Beaumaris’ person at least no fault could be found. She said that she did not think him handsome, and that she held dandies in abhorrence. Miss Blackburn, terrified that she might, in this alarming mood, betray her dislike of Mr. Beaumaris at parting, begged her not to forget what the barest civility rendered obligatory. She added that one slighting word uttered by him would be sufficient to wither any young lady’s career at the outset, and then wished that she had held her tongue, since this warning had the effect of bringing the militant sparkle back into Arabella’s eyes. But when Mr. Beaumaris handed her into the coach, and, with quite his most attractive smile, lightly kissed the tips of her fingers before letting her hand go, she bade him farewell in a shy little voice that gave no hint of her loathing of him.
The coach set off down the drive; Mr. Beaumaris turned, and in a leisurely way walked back into his house. He was pounced on in the hall by his injured friend, who demanded to know what the devil he meant by inflicting lemonade upon his guests.
“I don’t think Miss Tallant cared for my champagne,” he replied imperturbably.
“Well, if she didn’t, she could have refused it, couldn’t she?” protested Lord Fleetwood. “Besides, it was no such thing! She drank two glasses of it!”
“Never mind, Charles, there is still the port,” said Mr. Beaumaris.
“Yes, by God!” said his lordship, brightening. “And, mind, now! I expect the very best in your cellar! A couple of bottles of that ’75 of yours, or—”