“I would not, I own. At the same time, I should desire to discourage any more such attempts.”
“Oh, I am not so green as to fall a victim twice! And I burned down his house, or, at any rate, the only lodging he seemed to have, and took Belinda away from him, so I think he has been pretty well punished, don’t you?”
“I must have a more vengeful disposition than you, Adolphus. No.”
The Duke smiled. “Well, he did you no service, after all. But I cannot but feel that he did me a great deal of service. Only wait until I have told you the sum of my adventures! You will be bound to agree that but for Liversedge nothing in the least out of the way would ever have happened to me. No, no, it would be the shabbiest thing to hand him over to the Law! Besides, he made me laugh!” He looked speculatively at his cousin. “And if you forced him to lead you to my prison, Gideon, I will hazard a guess that you used him very roughly first.”
“Yes, was it not odd of me?” retorted Gideon. “But this will not do, my child! He is not less villainous for making us laugh. If you had not written to me from Baldock, I should not have known where to look for you, and all might have gone very ill indeed with you.”
“Nothing of the sort!” said the Duke, with one of his impish smiles. “You did not rescue me from my cellar, Gideon! I rescued myself! You can have no notion of how much I am set up in my own esteem! Liversedge shall go free. I have more important things to think about.”
Gideon poured himself out a glass of port, and sat down, stretching his long legs before him. “Very well, let it be as you please! But what is to be done with him? He appears to be penniless, and has informed me, with his engaging candour, that of all towns in the world Bath is the one where he least desires to show his face. It would not surprise me if you found it hard to be rid of him. He has effrontery enough for anything!”
“Oh, let him make himself useful at Cheyney, until I have time to consider what must be done with him!” said the Duke carelessly. “If I can induce Mamble to take Tom there, they will be glad of an extra servant in the house. I daresay he may make an excellent butler.”
This made Gideon choke over his port, but when he had recovered he admitted that there was much in what his cousin said, as well he knew, since the moment of his reaching Reading on the previous evening Liversedge had taken it upon himself to act as a major-domo. “I have no doubt he was intent only on softening my hard heart, but I will own that no one could have been more zealous to discover some trace of you, Adolphus. In fact, I owe it to him that we did at last pick up the scent, for when no one could be brought to remember a little fellow in an olive-green coat, he enquired for your inamorata, describing her in terms which has given me an overmastering desire to meet her. There was no difficulty then: no one, it seems, could fail to remember the lady!”
“No, very true! She is the most dazzling girl! You shall certainly see her, but mind, Gideon! you are not to seduce her with promises of a purple silk gown!”