“Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll make such a cake of myself! If George wants to look like a Johnny Raw he may do so, but he ain’t going to drag me into it!”
Hero was about to argue the point when she suddenly recollected that Sherry too had been one of the Incomparable’s suitors. She thought that perhaps he was trying to mask a natural disinclination to spend a whole afternoon in the company of the unattainable, and tactfully forbore to press him any further. She suggested to George that they should invite Mr Fakenham to make a fourth in their party. George agreed to this, but when he had had a moment in which to think it over he remembered that Ferdy also formed one of Miss Milborne’s court, and he said that he fancied balloons were not much in Ferdy’s line, and would instead bring his friend, Algernon Gumley, to share in the treat. The Viscount let out a most unseemly crack of laughter at this, but refused to explain why. George informed Hero, a trifle stiffly, that she would find Mr Gumley a very good humoured fellow, and took himself off, carefully carrying his rose with him.
Hero sat down at the writing-table to compose a suitable note to Isabella. Sherry said: “What a fellow George is! Dead roses and balloon ascensions! You wouldn’t think it, but he used to be as game a man as you would meet in a twelve-month before he clapped eyes on Isabella. I’ll swear she means to have Severn, too — if she can get him! They’re laying bets against it at the clubs, you know.”
“Oh, Sherry!” Hero said, turning round to look at him. “She could not be so heartless as to bestow a flower upon him if her affections were not seriously engaged!”
“Much you know about it!” he responded. “Why, she’s the most heartless girl I ever met in my life! Look at the way she treated me!”
“Yes,” Hero said, hanging down her head a little. “She was very unkind to you, of course. I am sorry I teased you to go with us this afternoon. I forgot that it must give you pain.”
“Give me pain?” repeated Sherry. “Oh — ah! Exactly! Slipped my mind for the moment. Do you mean to be writing letters for ever, or are we to drive round to Grosvenor Square?”
Hero assured him that she would be ready to set forth with him in a quarter of an hour, so he went off to send a message to the stables, while she finished her note, and despatched it by the hand of her page.
The visit to the dowager was not a success. She was discovered reclining on a sofa, with the blinds half lowered and Hervey’s Meditations Among the Tombs significantly open on her knee. She greeted her daughter-in-law with a visible shudder, and embraced her son with all the tenderness of one conveying speechless sympathy for a victim of fate. A suggestion put forward by Sherry that she might present Hero at Court brought on all her most alarming symptoms. She held out no hope of her health’s permitting her to visit the house in Half Moon Street; and a blunt request from Sherry for the family emeralds apparently brought up a series of the most affecting memories, which obliged her to have recourse to her vinaigrette, and to dab at the corners of her perfectly dry eyes.
“But you never wear ’em, ma’am!” Sherry protested. “Dash it, you were always used to say green was not your colour, and you teased my father into giving you the diamond set in their stead! Besides, you know very well they belong to me — have done, ever since my father died!”