“Oh, no!” said Gilly. “I am just very tired of being myself, and I am going to take your advice, and try how I like being plain Mr. Dash. To be Duke of Sale is a dead bore!”
“I am aware. Did I so advise you? My father will want my head on a charger!”
“Last night. I have made a start already, for I have been doing all manner of things that I never did before. A man I met in the City took me for a Johnny Raw. And I think he was right: I am shockingly green! But I shall soon learn. I am going out of town, you know.”
“So I had supposed. Does that infamous bundle contain your raiment?”
“Yes, and such a work as I had to get it away without Nettlebed’s seeing it! Gideon, I think perhaps Nettlebed may seek me here. Do, pray, assure him that I am safe, and keep them all from flying into some absurd pucker!”
“You may rely on me, Adolphus,—if not to do quite what you would wish—at least to afford your retinue no clue whatsoever to your whereabouts. In fact, I shall deny all knowledge of you.”
“Poor Nettlebed!” said Gilly. “I fear he will be in despair. I offended him this morning, and left him quite out of charity with me. I suppose it is a great deal too bad of me to put him in a fright, but I can’t bear it any longer, Gideon! They treat me as though I were a child, or an imbecile! I cannot move a step without one or other of them running to call my carriage, or hand me my gloves, or ask me when I mean to return! Yes, yes, I know what you will say! But I cannot do it! I have made the attempt, but the devil of it is I can’t but remember how Borrowdale used to give me sugar-plums when I was in disgrace, and how dear, good Chigwell told my uncle it was he who broke the window in the Red Drawing-room, and how Nettlebed has nursed me whenever I have been ill—oh, and a hundred other things of the kind!”
Gideon’s crooked smile flickered. “Very well. So, since you cannot bring yourself to tell them that you are a man, and can fend for yourself, you mean to show them that it is so. Is that it?”
“I suppose it is. That is, I didn’t think of it, but perhaps it may answer! I only thought how much I wished to be free! But I own if the chance had not offered I should still be talking fustian about being blue-devilled, and making not the least push to assert myself! I must be the dullest, most spiritless dog alive!”
“Oh, without doubt!” agreed Gideon. “But has this humdrum age suddenly offered you adventure, Adolphus? I had not believed it to be possible!”