“Marling,” said his lordship. “Now what’s to do?”
Miss Challoner jumped in her chair. “Your cousin! Juliana Marling! But I know her!”
“Do you?” said Vidal, not visibly excited. “A mad piece, ain’t she?”
“Oh, she was my very dearest friend!” Miss Challoner said. “But I never dreamed she was your cousin! We were at the same seminary, you see.”
“I’ll wager Juliana learned precious little there,” remarked Vidal.
“Not very much,” allowed Miss Challoner. “They nearly sent her away once, for — er — flirting with the drawing-master. She always said they only forgave her because her uncle was a duke.”
“Kissed the drawing-master, did she? She would!”
“Is she really going to marry Mr. Comyn?” inquired Miss Challoner.
“She says so. But she can’t run off with him now until our affair is settled. Egad, it’s providential that you know her!” He pushed back his chair and got up. “She’s staying with my cousin Elisabeth — bundled off too young to be out of Comyn’s way. I’ll go and pay my respects to her immediately we reach Paris, and tell her the whole story. She’s a rattle-pate, but she’s fond of me, and she’ll do as I bid her. She shall have met you in Paris, just as you were on the point of returning to England with — oh, an aunt, or some such thing. She will tell Tante Elisabeth that she has prevailed upon you to visit her for a week or two and you will go to the Hotel Charbonne surrounded by a positive fog of respectability. From whence, my dear, I shall presently elope with you — before, I trust, Tante has had time to discover the truth.”
Miss Challoner was thinking fast. If Juliana were in Paris, Juliana could help her to obtain a post in some genteel household. Knowing that lively damsel, she had no fear that she might be shocked at her friend’s extraordinary escapade. “Yes, my lord, that is a very good notion — some of it, but I believe you have not perceived the whole good of Juliana’s presence in Paris. You have said yourself, sir, that I shall be surrounded by a positive fog of respectability. I have only to pretend to my mother that Juliana was with you from the start of our journey, and my reputation is saved.”