“Not admit the rich Mr Ravenscar?” he said cynically. “My dear aunt! I shall be welcomed with open arms.”
“Well, I hope they won’t fleece you,” said Lady Mablethorpe. “On the contrary, you hope they will,” he retorted. “But I am a very ill bird for plucking!
“If Adrian meets you there, he will suspect your purpose. He will certainly think that I sent you.”
“Deny it,” said Ravenscar, bored.
Lady Mablethorpe started to deliver herself of an improving lecture on the evils of deception, but, finding that her nephew was quite unimpressed, stopped, and said with a somewhat vindictive note in her voice: “I beg that you will take care, Max! They say the girl is like a honey-pot, and I’m sure I’ve no wish to see you caught in her toils.”
He laughed. “There is not the slightest need for you to concern yourself about me, ma’am. I am neither twenty years of age, nor of a romantic disposition. You had better not tell Adrian that I have been here. No doubt I shall see him in St James’s Square this evening.”
She held out her hand to him, a good deal mollified. “You are a most provoking man, Max, but indeed I don’t know what I should do without you! You will manage it all. I depend entirely upon you!”
“For once,” said Mr Ravenscar, raising her hand formally to his lips, “you may quite safely do so.”
He took his leave of her, and departed. She opened her book again, but sat for a few moments gazing into the fire, her mind pleasantly occupied with daydreams. Once extricated from his present predicament, she had great hopes that her son would have learnt his lesson, and keep clear of any further entanglements. The account Ravenscar had brought of his half-sister’s activities had not been entirely palatable, but Lady Mablethorpe was a broad-minded woman, disinclined to set much store by the vagaries of a young lady of only eighteen summers. To be sure, it was unfortunate that Arabella should be such a flirt, but what, in another damsel, would have been a shocking fault, was, in such a notable heiress, a mere whimsicality of youth. Flirt or not, Lady Mablethorpe had every intention of seeing Arabella married to her son. Nothing, she thought, could be more suitable. Arabella had birth, fortune, and prettiness; she had known her cousin intimately since babyhood, and would make him a very good wife. Lady Mablethorpe had not the smallest objection to the child’s liveliness: she thought it very taking, coupled, as it had always been, with a graceful, playful deference towards her aunt.
The recollection of the nameless suitor in a scarlet coat momentarily disturbed her ladyship’s complacent dream. She soon banished it, reflecting that Max could be counted upon to put a stop to any such nonsense. Callous he might be, but he was not at all the man to stand idle while Arabella bestowed herself and her eighty thousand pounds on some nobody in a line regiment. For herself, Lady Mablethorpe was obliged to admit that it would be a shocking thing for Arabella to bestow these rich gifts on any other man than young Lord Mablethorpe.