“Of course I will escort you!” he replied at once. “Is Rivenhall away from home?”
“It is impossible for me to ask him to go with me. Pray let me finish this note for Cecilia!”
He begged pardon and moved away to a chair by the window. Good manners forbade him to press her for an explanation she was plainly reluctant to offer, but he was very much puzzled. The mischievous look had quite vanished from her eyes; — she seemed to be in an unusually grave mood — a circumstance that threw him off his guard and made him only anxious to be of service to her.
The note to Cecilia was soon finished and closed with a wafer. Sophy rose from the writing table, and Charlbury ventured to ask her whether she desired him to drive her to Ashtead in his curricle.
“No, no, I have hired a post chaise! I daresay it will be here directly. You did not come in your curricle?”
“No, I walked from Brooks’s. You are making a stay in the country?”
“I hardly know. Will you wait while I put on my hat and cloak?”
He assented, and she went away, returning presently with Tina frisking about her in the expectation of being taken for a walk. The hack chaise was already at the door, and Dassett, quite as mystified as Lord Charlbury, had directed a footman to strap Miss Stanton-Lacy’s portmanteau onto the back. Sophy gave her two last notes into his hand, directing him to be sure that Mr. and Miss Rivenhall received them immediately upon their return to the house. Five minutes later she was seated in the chaise beside Charlbury and expressing the hope that the threatened rainstorm would hold off until they had reached Lacy Manor. Tina jumped up into her lap, and she then told his lordship that she had encountered in the Green Park just such another Italian greyhound, who had made no secret of his admiration of Tina. Tina’s coquetry had to be described; this led an amusing account of the jealousy of Mr. Rivenhall’s spaniel, brought up by him from the country for a couple of nights; and in this way, by easy gradations, Lord Charlbury found himself discussing pheasant shooting, fox hunting, and various other sporting pursuits.
These topics lasted until the Kennington turnpike had been passed, by which time his lordship’s faculties, at first bewildered, were very much on the alert. He fancied that the mischief was back in Sophy’s eye. At Lower Tooting, he politely allowed his gaze to be directed to the curious church tower, with its circular form surmounted by a square wooden frame, with a low spire of shingles above it; but when Sophy leaned back again in her corner of the chaise, he said, watching her face, “Sophy, are we by any chance eloping together?”
Her rich chuckle broke from her. “No, no, it is not as bad I as that! Must I tell you?”