"I'm sure I trust not, sir: only master will have his own way."
"Is he at home?"
"He is gone to the opera with my lady. The young ladies are upstairs alone. Miss Dalrymple has been ill, sir, ever since the bother of the bracelet, and Lady Frances is staying at home with her."
"I'll go up and see them. If the colonel and my lady are at the opera, we shall be snug and safe."
"Oh, Mr. Gerard, had you better go up, do you think?" the man ventured to remark. "If the colonel should come to hear of it——"
"How can he? You are not going to tell him, and I am sure the young ladies will not. Besides, there's no help for it: I can't go out again for hours yet. And, Thomas, if any demon should knock and ask for me, I am gone to—to—an evening party at Putney: went out, you know, by the other door."
Thomas watched him run up the stairs, and shook his head, thinking deeply. "One can't help liking him, with it all; though where could the bracelet have gone to, if he did not take it?"
The drawing-rooms were empty, and Gerard made his way to a small room that Lady Sarah called her boudoir. There they were: Alice buried in the pillows of an invalid-chair, and Lady Frances careering about the room, apparently practising some new mode of waltzing. She did not see him: Gerard danced up to her, took her hands, and joined in it.
"Oh!" she cried, with a little scream of surprise, "you! Well, I have stayed at home to some purpose. But how could you think of venturing within these sacred and forbidden walls? Do you forget that the colonel threatens us with the terrors of the law, if we suffer you to enter? You are a bold man, Gerard."
"When the cat's away, the mice can play," said Gerard, treating them to a pas seul.