“Precisely eighteen,” replied the Earl, with disastrous promptness.
“Nonsense!” said Brummell, considerably startled. “It was not as long ago as that, surely, that I joined the regiment?”
“You were gazetted to the 10th Hussars in June of ’94, and you left us in ’98—upon the regiment’s being moved to Manchester,” said the Earl inexorably.
“I remember that,” admitted Brummell. “But how very shocking! I must be thirty-four or five!”
“Thirty-four,” said the Earl.
“My dear Julian, I beg you won’t mention it to anyone!” said Brummell earnestly.
“I won’t. What was it you wanted to say?”
“Oh, merely that during the years I have known you I have always thought you a man of considerable resource,” said Brummell.
“I am obliged to you,” said the Earl. “You have only to add that the most determined suitor to Miss Taverner’s hand is one Charles Audley, and we shall understand one another tolerably well.”
“But I have known you for eighteen years,” objected Brummell. “And it does seem to me that I have seen another determined suitor—a very civil gentleman who is, I think, a cousin.”