He grinned. “No. Cribb’s Parlour!”
“How horrid you are! I suppose you are going to discuss the merits of a Bloomsbury Pet, or a Black Diamond, or — or — ”
“A Mayfair Marvel,” he supplied. “Nothing so interesting. I am going to blow a cloud with a few friends. And what do you know of Bloomsbury Pets, miss?”
She threw him a saucy look as she passed him on the way down the staircase. “Only what I have learnt from my brothers, Charles!”
He laughed, and let her go, but before she had reached the bottom of the flight, leaned over the banisters, and said imperatively, “Cecilia!” She looked up enquiringly. “Does that fellow Wraxton annoy you?”
She was nearly betrayed into losing her gravity. She replied, “Oh, well! I daresay I could snub him easily enough, if — well, if I chose to do so!”
“You need not be deterred by any consideration that I know of. I need scarcely say that if Eugenia knew of it she would be the first to condemn his behavior!”
“Of course,” she said.
Whether he spoke words of censure to Miss Wraxton no one was in a position to know. If he did, they must, Sophy thought, have been mild ones, for she did not appear to be in any way chastened. However, Sophy was granted one satisfaction. When next Miss Wraxton brought up the vexed question of Jacko, confiding to Lady Ombersley that she lived in dread of hearing that the monkey had bitten one of the children, Charles overheard her, and said impatiently, “Nonsense!”
“I believe a monkey’s bite is poisonous.”