"Yes," she acknowledged.
"Dances very well, I see. All the Duke's family do, of course. But he will be making enemies if he monopolises Bab Childe."
"Monopolises her?" faltered Judith. "Is not this the first time he has danced with her?"
"Oh no! He was dancing with her the last waltz. My wife tells me the young fellows form up in column for the honour of obtaining the lady's hand."
"Charles is fortunate, then," said Judith.
"If you choose to call it fortunate," said Sir Henry, giving her a somewhat shrewd look. "I don't want to see any of my staff entangled in that direction. She has a very unsettling effect, from what I can discover. One of Barnes's boys lost his head badly over her, and is now of about as much use to Barnes as my wife's little spaniel would be."
"I wonder who introduced Charles to her?"
Sir Henry laughed shortly. "I can tell you that, dear lady. The Prince of Orange." Judith pursued the subject no further. Sir Henry's differences with the Prince made it tactless to introduce that ebullient young gentleman's name into any conversation with his second-in-command.
Colonel Audley relinquished Barbara presently, and discovering a disinclination in himself to dance with anyone else, went away in search of other amusement. This was not hard to find, for he had many friends present, and was able to spend a pleasant hour %vandering about the ballroom and the adjoining salons, exchanging greetings and news with his acquaintances.
Two suppers were being served at midnight, the one a select affair given by the King to his more Distinguished guests; the other a less select and more Informal entertainment held in an adjoining salon. The Earl and Countess of Worth were of the first party; so, too, was Colonel Audley, in his character of aide-de-camp. He was about to join the stream of people passing through the ballroom to the King's supper parlour, and was standing by the entrance to one of the apartments leading out of the main antechamber, when the curtains obscuring the room behind him were thrust back, and Miss Devenish came out, almost running, her cheeks flushed, and one hand gasping to her shoulder a torn frill of lace.
So precipitate was her arrival in the antechamber that she nearly collided with Colonel Audley and recoiled with an exclamation on her lips and appearance of great confusion.
Colonel Audley had turned, with a word of apology for obstructing the way. Miss Devenish, still clutching her torn frill, said in a breathless voice: "It is of no consequence. It was quite my fault. I beg your pardon - I was going in search of my aunt!"
Colonel Audley glanced from this agitated little lady towards the room from which she had fled in such haste, and took a step towards the entrance. Miss Devenish put out her hand quickly to stop him: "Oh, please!" she said. "I don't wish - I am being very stupid. So vexing! I have had the misfortune to tear my lace, and must get it pinned up."
Colonel Audley took her trembling hand in his, and held it in a comfortingly firm clasp. "My dear ma'am, what has happened to distress you?" he asked. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Oh no, indeed! You are very kind, but it was nothing - really nothing at all! If I could find my aunt it is time to be going in to supper, I believe."
Colonel Audley glanced towards the ballroom. "We will do our best to discover her, but I am afraid it will be a difficult task," he said. "Does she expect you to join her in the supper-room?"
"Oh yes! That is, nothing was said, but of course she would expect me. I was to have gone in with a - a gentleman, only…" She broke off, blushing more furiously that ever.
"Only that perhaps the gentleman had had a trifle too much to drink, and so forgot himself," finished the Colonel in a matter-of-fact voice.
Miss Devenish gave a gasp, and looked quickly up into his face. The smile in his eyes seemed to reassure her. She said: "Yes, that was it. Oh, how singular it must appear to you! But indeed -"
"It doesn't appear in the least singular to me," he interrupted. "But your lace! That is a more serious matter. If you had a pin - or even two pins - in your reticule, and could trust to my bungling fingers, I believe I could set it to rights."
The fright had by this time died out of her eyes. A smile quivered on her lips. She replied: "I have a pin -two pins - but are you sure you can?"
"No," said the Colonel. "But I am sure I can try , give me your pins."
She glanced round, but they were alone in the antechamber. "Thank you: you are very obliging!" she said and opened her reticule.
The pins once discovered, it was a matter of a minute or two only before the frills were in place again. Miss Devenish was quite astonished by the Colonel's deediness. "I made sure you would prick me at least!"
said merrily. "But I am quite in your debt! Thank you."
He offered his arm. "May I take you to your aunt, if we can find her?"
"Oh - ! I should be very happy: but am I not trespassing on your time?"
"How should you be? Perhaps your aunt may be waiting for you in the ballroom."
No trace, however, of Mrs Fisher was to be found there, nor was she discovered in the corridor leading to the second supper-room.
"I am afraid there is nothing for it but for you to accept me in place of your other supper partner," said the Colonel. "Your aunt must have gone in already, and from what I have seen of the crowd there you will be lucky indeed if you contrive to find her. Shall we go in?"
She looked doubtfully at him. "But are you sure you are not expected in the other room? I thought - someone told me - that nearly all the staff officers were invited, and you are one, are you not?"
"I am, but no one will care a button whether I sup in the other room or not, I assure you," replied the Colonel. "It will be very dull, if I know these staff functions."
"Will it?"
"Oh, I give you my word! It will last an interminable time, and a great many people will made interminable speeches. I should infinitely prefer to sup with you."
Miss Devenish smiled. "I shall be very happy to go with you," she said. "Indeed, I think I should feel wretchedly lost by myself. There are so many people!"
They fell in with the slow-moving stream of guests, and presently found themselves in a large, brilliantly-lit room set out with any number of tables, and already bewilderingly full of people. As they paused within the room, looking about them for a couple of vacant places, Miss Devenish exclaimed: "Oh, there she is!" and started towards a table near the door, at which was seated a stout, good-humoured-looking lady in purple sarsnet and a turban.
"There you are, my love!" said Mrs Fisher. "I came in early to be sure of obtaining a good place. Well, and are you enjoying yourself? For my part I find the rooms very hot, but I daresay young people don't notice such Things. You had better sit down while you may. I assure you I have been quite put to it to keep these seats for you."
Miss Devenish turned to Colonel Audley. "Thank you so very much! You need not miss your engagement in the other room after all, you see."
Mrs Fisher, having favoured the Colonel with a sleepy yet shrewd scrutiny, interposed to invite him most hospitably to join her at the table. "I would not go into the other room if I were you," she told him. "I daresay they will be making speeches for as much as a couple of hours."
"Just what I have been saying to your niece, ma'am," he replied, pulling out a chair for Miss Devenish.
As he did so a hand smote him on the shoulder.
"Hallo, Charles! How are you? What are you doing here? I thought you were supping in state! Judith and Worth are."
The Colonel turned. "Hallo, Perry!" he said, shaking hands. "How do you do, Lady Taverner? Yes, I ought to be in the other room, but I missed Worth, and so came here instead. Are you staying long in Brussels? Do you like it?"
"Oh, pretty fair! 'Evening, ma'am - 'evening, Miss Devenish. Look, Harriet, there's Dawson waving to us: he has secured a table. Charles, are you staying with Worth? Oh then, I shall see you!"
He passed on, and the Colonel turned back to Miss Devenish to find her staring at him in t
he liveliest surprise. He could not help laughing. "But what have I done? What have I said?" he asked.
"Oh! nothing, of course! But I had no idea you were Colonel Audley until Sir Peregrine spoke to you. Lady Worth is such a particular friend of mine!"
Mrs Fisher interposed to say in rather a bewildered voice: "My love, what is all this? Surely you have been introduced!"
"No," admitted Miss Devenish. "I came upon Colonel Audley quite by accident."
"But we were as good as introduced, ma'am," said the Colonel, "for I distinctly remember my sister telling me that she would present me to Miss Devenish. But just then the King and Queen arrived, and the opportunity was lost."
Mrs Fisher smiled indulgently, but remarked that she had never known her niece to be so scatter brained.
A couple of hours later Lady Worth, coming back into the ballroom on her husband's arm, was dumbfounded by the sight of Colonel Audley waltzing with Miss Devenish.
"Oh, so you contrived it, did you?" said Worth, also observing this circumstance.
"I did no such thing!" replied Judith. "In fact, I had quite made up my mind it would be useless to present him to poor Lucy, straight from Bab Childe's clutches! But was there ever such a provoking man? Not but what I am very glad to see him with Lucy. Even you will admit that that would be preferable to an entanglement with Lady Barbara! I wonder who introduced him to her?"
She was soon to learn from the lady herself in what manner the Colonel had become acquainted with Miss Devenish, for Lucy joined her presently and confided the story to her sympathetic ear.
"Very disagreeable for you," said Judith. "I am glad Charles was at hand to be of assistance."
"He was so very kind! But I am afraid you must have peen wondering what had become of him. Was it very wrong of me to let him have supper with us?"
Judith started. "So that was where he was! To be pure, I could not see him at any of the tables, but there was such a crowd I might easily miss him. I make no doubt he had a much more agreeable time of it with you. "
"We had a very cosy party," replied Miss Devenish, "if only my aunt had not found the heat so oppressive!
Colonel Audley has such pleasant, open manners that makes one feel one has known him all one's life."
Lady Worth agreed to it, and had the satisfaction, during their drive home, of hearing Colonel Audley comment favourably on Miss Devenish. "A very charming, unaffected girl," he said.
"I am glad you were able to be of service to her."
"Pinning up her lace? No very great matter," replied the Colonel.
"I understood she had a disagreeable adventure: some young man (she would not tell me his name) was ungentlemanly enough to force his attentions upon her, surely?"
"Oh, I had nothing to do with that!" said the Colonel. "He was probably in his cups, and meant no serious harm."
"She is unfortunately situated in having an aunt too indolent to chaperon her as she should, and an uncle whose birth and manners cannot add to her consequence. The fact of her being an heiress makes her very generally sought after!
"An enviable position!" said the Colonel.
"Ah, you do not know! But I was an heiress myself, and I can tell you it was sometimes a very unenviable position."
Worth said, with a note of amusement in his voice: "My position was certainly so, but that you experienced anything but the most profound enjoyment comes as news to me."
She was betrayed into a laugh, but said: "Well, perhaps I did enjoy teasing you at least, but recollect that I was never a shy creature like Lucy."
"I recollect that perfectly," said the Earl.
"Is Miss Devenish shy? I did not find her so," said the Colonel. "Shy girls are the devil, for they won't talk, and have such a habit of blushing that one is for ever thinking one has said something shocking. I found Miss Devenish perfectly conversable."
Judith was satisfied. The Colonel, though ready to discuss the fete, had apparently forgotten Barbara Childe's existence. Not one word of admiration for her crossed his lips; her name was not mentioned.
"Julian, what a mercy! I don't believe he can have liked her after all!" confided her ladyship later, in the privacy of her own bedroom. "Indeed, I might have trusted to his excellent good sense. Did you notice that he did not once speak of her?"
"I did," replied the Earl somewhat grimly. "Well?"
He looked at her, smiling, and took her chin in his hand. "You are an ever-constant source of delight to me, my love. Did you know?" he said, kissing her.
Judith returned this embrace with great readiness, but asked: "Why? Have I said something silly?"
"Very silly," Worth assured her tenderly.
"How horrid you are! Tell me at once!"
"My adorable simpleton, Charles induced no less a personage than the Prince of Orange to present him to she most striking woman in the room, seized not one but two waltzes which I have not the least doubt were bespoken days ago by less fortunate suitors, and comes away at the end of the evening with apparently not one word to say of a lady whom even you will admit to be of quite extraordinary beauty."
"Oh!" she said. "Is that a bad sign, do you think?"
"The worst!" he answered.
She was shaken, but said stoutly: "Well, I don't believe it. Charles has great good sense. I am perfectly at ease."
Had she been privileged to observe Colonel Audley's actions not very many hours later her faith in his good sense might have suffered a shock. The Colonel's staff training had made him expert in obtaining desired information, and he had not wasted his time at the fete. While his sister-in-law still lay sleeping, he was up, and in the Earl's stables. Seven o'clock saw him cantering gently down the Allee Verte, beyond the walls of the town, mounted on a blood mare reserved for his brother's exclusive use.
Nor was this energy wasted. The edge had scarcely gone from the mare's morning freshness before the Colonel was rewarded by the sight of a slim figure, in a habit of cerulean blue, cantering ahead of him, unattended by any groom, and mounted on a raking grey hunter.
The Colonel gave the mare her head, and in two minutes was abreast of the grey. Lady Barbara, hearing the flying hooves, had turned her head, and immediately urged the grey to a gallop. Down the deserted Allee raced the horses, between two rows of thick lime trees, and with the still waters of the canal shining on their left.
"To the bridge!" called Barbara.
The Colonel held the mare in a little. "Done! What will you wager?"
"Anything you please!" she said recklessly.
"Too rash! I might take an unfair advantage!"
"Pooh!" she returned.
They flew on, side by side, until in the distance the bridge leading over the canal to the Laekon road came into sight. Then the Colonel relaxed his grip and allowed the Doll to lengthen her stride. For a moment or two the grey kept abreast, but the pace was too swift for her to hold. The mare pulled ahead, flashed on up the avenue, was checked just short of the bridge, and reached it, dancing on her hooves and snatching a little at the bit.
Barbara came up like a thunderbolt, and reined in, panting. "Oh, by God! Three lengths!" she called out. "What do I lose?"
The Colonel leaned forward in the saddle to pat the Doll's neck. Under the brim of his low-cocked hat his eyes laughed into Barbara's. "I wish it might be your heart!"
"My dear sir, don't you know I haven't one? Come now! In all seriousness?"
He looked at her thoughtfully. She had had the audacity to cram over her flaming curls a hat like an English officer's forage cap. She wore it at a raffish angle, the leathern peak almost obscuring the Vision of one merry eye. Her habit was severely plain, with no more than two rows of silver buttons adorning it, but the cravat round her throat was deeply edged with lace, its ends thrust through a buttonhole.
"One of your gloves," said the Colonel, and held out his hand.
She pulled it off at once, and tossed it to him. He caught it, and tucked it into the breast of his coat.
&
nbsp; She wheeled her mount, and prepared to retrace her steps. The Colonel fell in beside her at a walking pace.
"Do you collect gloves, Colonel?"
"I have not up till now," he replied. "But a glove is a satisfactory keepsake, you know. Something of the wearer always remains with it."
"Let me tell you that a gallant man would have let me win!" she said, with a touch of raillery.
He turned his head. "Are you in general so spoilt?"
"Of course! I'm Bab Childe!" she replied, opening her eyes at him.
"And challenged me to a race in the expectation of being permitted to win?"
Her mouth lifted a little at the corners; the one eye he could see glinted provocatively. "What do you think?"
"I think you are too good a sportsman, Lady Barbara."
"Am I? I wonder?" Her gaze flitted to the Doll; she said appreciatively: "I like a man to be a judge of horseflesh. What's her breeding?"
"I haven't a notion," replied the Colonel. "To tell you the truth, she is out of my brother's stable."
"I thought I knew her. But this is abominable! How was I to guess you would steal one of Worth's horses? I consider you to have won almost by a trick! She's the devil to go, isn't she? Does he know you have her out?"
"Not yet," admitted the Colonel. "My dependence is all on his being still too delighted at having me restored to him to object."
She laughed. "You deserve to be thrown out of doors! I believe that to be the mare he habitually rides himself!"
"Oh, it won't come to that!" said the Colonel. "I shall implore my sister-in-law's intercession. That is a nice fellow you have there."
She passed her hand over the grey's neck. "Yes, this is Coup de Grace. We are in the same case, only that while you stole your lady, I have been lent this gentleman."
"Whom does he belong to?" asked the Colonel, running an eye over his points. "He may have a French name, but I'll swear he's of English breeding."
"Captain de Lavisse bought him in England last year," she replied with one of her sidelong looks.
An Infamous Army a-3 Page 6
