Before the Viscount had had time to find an evening spent at his own fireside very flat, a knock sounded on the street door, and in a few minutes Sir Montagu Revesby’s card was brought up to Sherry. He commanded Groombridge to beg this late caller to step upstairs, and himself went out on to the landing to welcome him.
Sir Montagu came in, full of graceful apologies for intruding upon her ladyship so soon after her arrival in town. He had been imperfectly informed: would have left his card at the house that morning: trusted she would forgive such informality: he had come only to discover if Sherry liked to accompany him to a little meeting of a few friends in a house nearby.
“Brockenhurst begged I would prevail upon you to join us, if you should have returned to London, my dear Sherry, but I fear” — with a bow, and one of his ironic smiles in Hero’s direction — “I have come on a fruitless errand.”
“Oh, lord, no, nothing of the sort!” Sherry said. “You won’t mind my leaving you, will you, Kitten?”
Mindful of his warning that once they were settled in London they would not interfere with each other’s pursuits, Hero swallowed her disappointment, and assured him that she was on the point of retiring to bed.
“That’s right,” said his lordship. “I knew you would be tired after the journey.” He picked up one of her hands, dropped a kiss on her wrist, and took himself off with Sir Montagu.
Hero lifted her wrist to her cheek, and held it there for some moments after he had gone. She felt a strong inclination to cry, and concluded that she must indeed be tired, since she knew very well that she had nothing whatsoever to cry about, but, on the contrary, everything in the world to make her happy. On this elevating thought she retired to her bedchamber, and talked in a very cheerful way to her abigail while she was undressed and put to bed.
Sherry, who did not return to the house until the small hours, put in no appearance at the breakfast table. When he did emerge from his bedchamber, it was past eleven o’clock, and not only was he clad in a dressing-gown, but he still looked remarkably heavy-eyed. He said simply that they had had a pretty batch of it at Brockenhurst’s, and also that he was dipped a little at hazard. Altogether, Hero did not think that it would be wise to remind him that they had planned to wait upon his mother at noon. He retired again to his room, irritably demanding why the devil Bootle had not brought up the water for his shave; and Hero was just deciding that it would be pleasant to go for an airing in Hyde Park in her barouche, when the first of her morning callers knocked on the door.
It was Mrs Bagshot, bringing her two elder daughters in her train. She came sailing into the drawing-room, almost before Groombridge had had time to announce her, paused in the middle of the floor, and, after throwing an appraising glance round, uttered the one word: “Well!”
Hero rose from her chair in some confusion, and came forward, blushing faintly, and stammering: “C-cousin J-Jane! C-Cassy! Eudora! How do you do?”