Her ladyship held out an imperative hand, a little twisted by gout. After a moment’s hesitation, Hero gave up the letter. Lady Saltash read it with an unmoved countenance. “Going to the devil, is he?” she commented. “Very likely. Just as I expected! Pray, what is there in this billet, beyond the lamentable spelling, to make you pull that long face?”
“Don’t you think Sherry is forgetting all about me, ma’am?” Hero asked wistfully.
“What, because he is behaving like a sulky boy? No such thing! He is determined no one, least of all yourself, my love, shall guess how much he cares. Really, I begin to have hopes of that tiresome boy! Put the letter up, my dear, and think no more of it! I apprehend we might find the piece they are playing at the Theatre Royal tolerably amusing. Have the goodness to sit down at my desk, and write two little notes, inviting Sir Carlton Frome and Mr Jasper Tarleton to do me the honour of accompanying me there tomorrow evening. We will send one of the servants round to procure a box for us.”
Hero obeyed her. She paused in the middle of her task to look up, and to say: “After all, if Sherry may amuse himself I do not know why I should not too!”
“Excellent!” said her ladyship, laughing. “Do you mean to break Mr Tarleton’s heart? I wish you may do it!”
Hero gave a chuckle. “Why, he is quite old, ma’am!”
“Quite old! If he is a day more than thirty-five I will never wear my new wig again!”
“Well, too old to break his heart,” amended Hero. “I like him extremely, for he is always so very kind and civil, and he makes me laugh.”
Lady Saltash, who was deriving considerable entertainment from watching her old friend, Jasper Tarleton, succumb to her protégée’s innocent charm, cast her a thoughtful look, but refrained from saying anything more. She had a certain fondness for Mr Tarleton, but having attempted a great many times to interest him in some eligible damsel and having seen her efforts on his behalf quite wasted, she acknowledged that it would afford her a certain degree of satisfaction to know that he had lost his heart to a lady as unattainable as she was uninterested. Mr Tarleton, thought her ladyship, was a great deal too sure of himself, and a little tumble would do him no harm at all.
Mr Jasper Tarleton was a bachelor, the owner of a comfortable little property situated a few miles outside Bath. He was known to be bookish, a circumstance which possibly accounted for his not having felt the lure of London; and it was generally supposed that he had suffered a disappointment in youth, which had given him a distaste for matrimony. However that might have been, without betraying any of the signs of the confirmed misogynist, he had certainly contrived to remain single, and was held to be a hard case indeed. Numerous females had set their caps at him, for besides being possessed of a handsome competence, he was good-looking, his air distinguished, and his manners very pleasing. But while he was happy to oblige any lady by flirting with her in an elegant and quite unexceptionable fashion, he never left the favoured fair in any doubt of his total lack of serious intention.