“He is very young, Fanny,” Hugh said, still watching the Marquis across the room.
“That makes it worse,” declared her ladyship. “Oh, my dear Lady Dawlish, I wondered whether I should see you to-night! I protest, it’s an age since I had a talk with you .... Odious woman, and as for her daughter, you may say what you choose, Hugh, but the girl squints! Where was I? Oh, Vidal, of course! Young? Yes, Hugh, I marvel that you should find that an excuse for him. The poor Hollands had trouble enough with their son, not but what I consider Holland was entirely to blame — but I never heard that Charles Fox ever did anything worse than lose a fortune at gaming, which is a thing no one could blame in him. It is very different with Vidal. From the day he left Eton he has been outrageous, and I make no doubt he was so in the nursery. It is not only his duels, Hugh — my dear, do you know he is considered positively deadly with the pistols? John tells me they say in the clubs that it makes no odds to the Devil’s Cub whether he is drunk or sober, he can still pick out a playing card on the wall. He did that at White’s once, and there was the most horrid scandal, for of course he was in his cups, and only fancy, Hugh, how angry all the people like old Queensberry and Mr. Walpole must have been! I wish I had seen it!”
“I did see it,” said Hugh. “A silly boy’s trick, no more.”
“I dare say, but it was no boy’s trick to kill young Ffolliot. A pretty to-do there was over that. But as I say, it is not only his duels. He plays high — well, so do we all, and he is a true Alastair — and he drinks too much. No one ever saw Avon in his cups that I ever heard of, Hugh. And worse — worse than all — ” she stopped and made a gesture with her fan.
“Opera dancers,” she said darkly.
Davenant smiled. “Well, Fanny, I deplore it as much as you do, but I believe you cannot say that no one ever saw Avon — ”
He was interrupted. “I am very fond of Justin,” said Lady Fanny tartly, “but I never pretended to approve of his conduct. And with all his faults Justin was ever bon ton. It is no such thing with Vidal. If he were my son, I should never have consented to let him live anywhere but under my roof. My own dear John scarce leaves my side.”
Hugh bowed. “I know you are very fortunate in your son, Fanny,” he said.
She sighed. “Indeed, he is prodigiously like his poor papa.”
Hugh made no reply to this but merely bowed again. Knowing her ladyship as he did, he was perfectly well aware that her son’s staid disposition was something of a disappointment to her.