“Well, I see nothing to cry about in that,” said Mrs Milborne briskly. “You should bear in mind, my love, that the shedding of tears has the very disagreeable effect of reddening a female’s eyes. I suppose you refused him?”
Her daughter nodded, sniffing rather more convulsively. “Yes, of course I did, Mama. And I said I could never marry anyone with so little d-delicacy of principle, or — ”
“Quite unnecessary,” said Mrs Milborne. “I wonder you should show so little delicacy yourself, Isabella, as to refer to those aspects of a gentleman’s life which no well-bred female should know anything about.”
“Well, but Mama, I don’t see how one is to help knowing about Sherry’s excesses, when all the town is talking of them!”
“Nonsense! In any event, there is not the least need for you to mention such matters. Not that I blame you for refusing Sherry. At least, I own that in some ways it would be an ideal match, for he is extremely wealthy, and we have always been particular friends of — But if Severn were to offer you, of course there could be no comparison between them!”
Miss Milborne flushed. “Mama! How can you talk so? I am not so mercenary! It is just that I do not love Sherry, and I am persuaded he does not love me either, for all his protestations!”
“Well, I dare say it will do him no harm to have had a setdown,” replied Mrs Milborne comfortably. “Ten to one, it will bring him to a sense of his position. But if you are thinking of George Wrotham, my love, I hope you will consider carefully before you cast yourself away upon a mere baron, and one whose estates, from all I can discover, are much encumbered. Besides, there is a lack of stability about Wrotham which I cannot like.”
In face of the marked lack of stability which characterized Viscount Sheringham, this remark seemed unjust to Miss Milborne, and she said so, adding that poor Wrotham had not committed the half of Sherry’s follies.
Mrs Milborne did not deny it. She said there was no need for Isabella to be in a hurry to make her choice, and recommended her to take a turn in the garden with a view to calming her spirits and cooling her reddened cheeks.
The Viscount, meanwhile, was riding back to Sheringham Place in high dudgeon. His self-esteem smarted intolerably; and, since he had been in the habit, during the past twelve month, of considering himself to be desperately enamoured of the Incomparable Isabella, and was not a young gentleman who was given to soul searching, it was not long before he was in a fair way to thinking that his life had been blighted past curing. He entered the portals of his ancestral home in anything but a conciliatory mood, therefore, and was not in the least soothed by being informed by the butler that her ladyship, who was in the Blue Saloon, was desirous of seeing him. He felt strongly inclined to tell old Romsey to go to perdition, but as he supposed he would be obliged to visit his mother before returning to London, he refrained from uttering this natural retort, contenting himself with throwing the butler a darkling glance before striding off in the direction of the Blue Saloon.