He shook his head. “No, Miss Taverner. That I will not do. I cannot imagine what possessed me to countenance the betrothal at all.”
She was a little startled, and turned in her chair to look at him more fully. “Why should you not? What is this change of face?”
He returned her gaze in a considering way, but after a slight pause, he merely said: “He is too young.”
She felt that he had not told her the real reason; she was annoyed, but tried not to show it. “Perhaps he is too young; I do not deny that I thought so at first. But now I feel that marriage would be the very thing for him. Miss Fairford does not like London, and I believe she would wish to reside the most of the year in Yorkshire. And it would be best for Perry, after all. He gets into dangerous scrapes in town. Only the other day—” She stopped, looked a little confused, and said after a moment: “Well, that is nothing. It is over now, and I should not have spoken. But I have been in some alarm about him.”
“You refer, I collect, to the duel which did not take place,” said the Earl.
She raised her eyes quickly. “You knew of that?”
“My dear Miss Taverner, when challenges are offered at the Cock-Pit it is not wonderful that there should be no secrecy attached to the subsequent meeting.”
“The Cock-Pit! That I had not heard! If you knew how much I detest cocking, and all that it leads to! I have had to see as many as a hundred cocks walking on my father’s estate, and to know that both he and Perry—but this is beside the point. I begin to understand now how it all came about. If it had not been for the intervention of one who has proved himself very much our friend, Perry might not be alive to-day.” The Earl turned a singularly penetrating gaze upon her. “Pray go on, Miss Taverner. Who was this well-disposed person?”
“My cousin, Mr. Bernard Taverner,” she replied. He lifted his quizzing-glass. “Your cousin. Are you sure that it was he who intervened?”
“Why, yes,” she said, rather surprised. “He was to some extent in Perry’s confidence. Perry taxed him with it afterwards, and he could not deny it. It is only one more instance of his consideration, his regard for us.”