She hesitated, saw him laughing and dimpled responsively. “Oh, very well, R-Robert!”
Lethbridge bent and kissed the hand she had put into his. “I protest I never knew how charming my poor name could sound until this moment,” he said.
“Pho!” said Horatia. “I am very sure any number of ladies have b-been before me with it.”
“But they none of them called me R-Robert,” explained his lordship.
Meanwhile, the Viscount, emerging briefly from the card-room, was obliged to answer a beckoning signal from Miss Winwood. He strolled across the room to her, and asked casually: “Well, Charlotte, what’s to do?”
Charlotte took his arm and made him walk with her towards one of the widow embrasures. “Pelham, I wish you won’t go back to the card-room. I am uneasy on Horry’s account.”
“Why, what’s the little hussy about now?” inquired the Viscount, unimpressed.
“I do not say that it is anything but the thoughtlessness that we, alas, know so well,” said Charlotte earnestly, “but to dance twice in succession with one gentleman and to go out on his arm gives her an air of singularity which I know dear Mama, or indeed Lord Rule, would deprecate.”
“Rule ain’t so strait-laced. Whom has Horry gone off with?”
“With the gentleman whom we met at Astley’s the other evening, I think,” said Charlotte. “His name is Lord Lethbridge.”