“Dreadful woman!” said Charles. “She never stops talking! She is known as Silence, in London.”
“Is she? Well, I am sure, if she knows it, she does not care a bit, for she dearly loves a joke.”
“You are fortunate knowing so many of the Patronesses of Almack’s,” observed Miss Wraxton.
Sophy gave her irrepressible chuckle. “To be honest, I think my good fortune lies in having such an accomplished flirt for a father!”
Mr. Wraxton giggled at this, and his sister, dropping a little behind, brought her mare up on Mr. Rivenhall’s other side, and said in a low tone, under cover of some quizzing remark made to Sophy by Mr. Wraxton: “It is a pity that men will laugh when her liveliness betrays her into saying what cannot be thought becoming. It brings her too much into notice, and that, I fancy, is the root of the evil.”
He raised his brows. “You are severe! Do you dislike her?”
“Oh, no, no!” she said quickly. “It is merely that I have no great taste for just that kind of sportive playfulness.”
He looked as though he would have liked to have said something more, but at this moment a very military-looking cavalcade came into sight, cantering easily toward them. It consisted of four gentlemen, whose dashing side whiskers and soldierly bearing proclaimed their profession. They glanced idly at Mr. Rivenhall’s party. The next instant there was a shout, and a hurried reining in, and one of the quartet exclaimed in ringing accents, “By all that’s wonderful, it’s the Grand Sophy!”
Confusion and babel followed this, all four gentlemen pressing up to grasp Sophy’s hand and pelting her with questions. Where had she sprung from? How long had she been in England? Why had they not been told of her arrival? How was Sir Horace?
“Oh, but, Sophy, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” declared Major Quinton, who had first hailed her.