Miss Grantham was not quite pleased at his having come into the room. It was evident, from Arabella’s artless disclosures, that that young lady was extremely susceptible, and Mr Kennet, besides being a good-looking man, had more than his share of male charm. She was obliged to present him to Arabella, but gave him a somewhat minatory look as she did so, which he received with the blandest of smiles. He sat down opposite to the sofa, and engaged both ladies in conversation. His manners were pleasing, and his address very easy and assured, while the smile that lurked in his eyes has been more than one lady’s undoing. However, Miss Grantham was relieved to see that he was behaving with perfect propriety towards her guest, treating her, in fact, in a way that almost bordered on the avuncular.
But nevertheless Miss Grantham was not sorry when Arabella got up to take her leave. She could not think Lucius Kennet a fit companion for a volatile young lady not yet nineteen years of age, and she was a little afraid that his knowledge of the world, the gay stories he told, the cosmopolitan air that clung to him, might have an extremely undesirable effect upon Miss Ravenscar. When Arabella exclaimed that he must have led the most romantic life, and expressed a wish to be a vagabond herself, she said in a dampening fashion that vagabondage was not at all romantic, but, on the contrary, tedious beyond words.
“Oh, I should love to be a gamester, and to travel, and to have adventures!” declared Arabella, drawing on her gloves again. “I must go now, but pray let me come to see you again, dear Miss Grantham! I shan’t say a word to Max, or to Mama, I promise.”
But although Miss Grantham had thought of a number of ways of punishing Mr Ravenscar, the introduction of his half-sister into gaming circles was not one of them, and she told Arabella that she could not permit her to visit the house while her relatives continued to disapprove of its inmates. “It would not be right, my dear,” she said, taking Arabella’s hand, and patting it. “You must do what your Mama and—and your brother think proper.”
Arabella pouted. “Oh, that is so stuffy, and I did not think you would be that! When you are married to Adrian, I shall visit you often, I warn you!”
“Ah, then!” said Deborah, smiling. “That is another matter.”
So Arabella went away, and was handed into her carriage by Mr Kennet, who told her that he for one was very sorry to think he should not see her in St. James’s Square again, since he had had the oddest feeling when he had entered the saloon that the sun had got into it.
“It is a very sunny day,” said Arabella demurely.
“But the saloon looks north,” Mr Kennet reminded her. “Sure, there’s no accounting for it at all!”
Arabella’s dimples peeped out. “It is very strange indeed,” she agreed, as innocent as a kitten.