“Certainly, if you wish it—immediately!” he said. “Though she is playing cards, you know, and I daresay it would cause a little talk, which you would not like.”
“Oh no! You are very right, sir,” she answered submissively. “Lord Worth will know what is best to be done.”
The Earl came back into the room at that moment, with a glass in his hand. “I see you are better, Miss Taverner. May I suggest, sir, that it would be advisable for you to return to the Saloon? You need not scruple to leave Miss Taverner in my charge.”
The Regent was perfectly ready to follow this piece of advice, even though he might resent the manner in which it was given. He begged Miss Taverner not to think of leaving the drawing-room until she felt herself to be quite recovered; assured her that he did not at all regard the trouble she had made; and went out by the door into the Chinese Gallery, which Worth was holding open for him.
The Earl shut the door, and came back to Miss Taverner’s side. He obliged her to drink some of the wine he had brought. The relief she had felt on first seeing him had by now given place to mortification at being found in so compromising a situation. She said with difficulty: “I did not know you were in the Pavilion. You must wonder at finding me in this room, I daresay, but—”
“Miss Taverner, how came you to do such a thing?” he interrupted. “I entered the Saloon to be met by the intelligence, conveyed to me by Brummell, that you had slipped away with the Regent. I came immediately to put an end to so improper a tête-à-tête, and I found you fainting in the Regent’s arms. You will tell me at once, if you please, what this means! What has happened in this room?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing, upon my honour!” she said wretchedly. “It was the heat, only the heat!”
“Why are you here?” he demanded. “What purpose can you have had in going apart with the Regent? Careless of your reputation I know you to be, but I had not thought it possible that you could behave with such imprudence!”
She was stung into replying: “How could I help going with him when he pressed me to as he did? What was I to say? Mrs. Scattergood was in the card-room; you were not present How could I know what I should do or say when no less a person than the Prince-Regent requested my company? These reproaches might have been spared! You cannot know the circumstances. Say no more! You may think me what you please: I am sure I do not care!”
“No,” said the Earl with strong feeling, “I am well aware of that at least! But while I have authority over you I must and will censure such conduct.”