“And so you have met that rascal Tom Hearst,” she said, and actually winked in my direction. Miss Fanny is Isobel's cousin from the Barbadoes, a well-grown girl of youthful and boisterous appearance, but sadly lacking in sense. “He has snatched you up for a dance or two, I warrant, and now I shall have to go begging for a partner. I am sure Tom should have monopolised my card,” she added, displaying that elegant slip attached to her fan, already overwritten with eager suitors, “but for his delicacy in appearing too forward.”

“Is Lieutenant Hearst a man of delicacy, then?” I enquired, with more interest in Miss Delahoussaye than I had heretofore felt.

“Oh, Lord, no!” she cried. “As rash a scapegrace as ever lived! But Tom is that afraid of Mamma” — at this, she tossed her blond curls in Madame Delahoussaye's general direction — ”as to be overcareful. I am sure that J should not fear her half so much. It is not as though I have a brother, you know, to fight with him and send him off.”

“Why should any fight with the Lieutenant?” I said, somewhat bewildered.

“Why, because he is in love with me, of course,” Fanny declared, rapping my shoulder with her fan; “and his fortune is hardly equal to my own. And if I did have a brother to fight him, it should be the worse for us; for you know Tom is come to Scargrave having killed a man in an affair of honour.” [8]

My distress at this intelligence being written upon my countenance, Miss Delahoussaye laughed aloud.

“I wonder you had not heard of it. Lord, it is the talk of the entire room! He has left his regiment at St. James for a little until the scandal dies down; though I am sure he should not have engaged in such an affair had he not been cruelly insulted.”

With this, Miss Delahoussaye attempted to look grave, but her blue eyes danced with approbation for the terrible Lieutenant.

“Undoubtedly,” I replied, “though we cannot know what it is about.”

“I mean to find out,” Miss Fanny said stoutly, “for the affairs of officers are to me the most romantic in the world! Do not you agree, Miss Austen? Is not an officer to be preferred above any man?”

“I had not thought them blessed with any particular merit—” I began, but was cutoff in mid-sentence.

“Then you cannot appreciate Tom as I do, and I shall not fear your charms any longer. He is wild about me, Miss Austen; do you remember it when you are dancing with him.” And with a flounce of her peacock-hued gown, Fanny Delahoussaye left me to await the return of her heart's delight.

It was but nine o'clock, and light refreshment was laid in a parlour at some remove from the great room; a crush of gentlemen and ladies circulated about the long table, seeking ices and champagne, cold goose and sweetmeats, sent forth from Scargrave's kitchens with a breathtaking disregard for expense. I considered the swarm of the unknown, some of whom were very fine, indeed, and for an instant wished myself returned to the hearth in my room, with a good book for company; but Isobel had taken my arm, and I was not to be so easily released.

“This is what it means to be a married woman, Jane,” my friend said, with an arch smile; “one is forever expected to forego refreshment so that others may dance. You may eat to your heart's content, but / must allow my husband to lead me to the floor, or suffer the contempt of my guests.” Isobel then swept off on the arm of the Earl, and proceeded to the head of the room; others equally eager to join in the revels formed up in pairs alongside them, as the musicians laid bow to string.

I felt the absence of Tom Hearst, and knew not whether to wish for the return of such a man or no. But my confusion was to be of short duration. A parting of the crowd, a sight of a curly head, and a jaunty bow in my direction; and I found myself facing the Lieutenant not four couples removed from the Earl and his lady, in all the flushed excitement of a first dance.

The knowledge of Lieutenant Hearst's having killed a man put flight to every other thought in my head, but since it is impossible to move through the figures without some attempt at conversation, I cast about in desperation for the slightest word. I fear I blushed, and turned my eyes to the ground, and appeared in every way as missish as possible, giving the Lieutenant as inaccurate a picture of myself as perhaps Miss Delahoussaye had drawn of him. My wordless confusion made him hesitate to utter a syllable; and thus we laboured in profound stupidity, for fully half the dance's span. But of all things detestable, I most detest a silent partner — and thrusting aside my horror of pistols at dawn, I took refuge in a lady's light banter.

“I have profited from your absence, Lieutenant, to enquire of your character,” I began.

A merry look, from under a lifted eyebrow. “And am I fit to touch your glove, Miss Austen?”

“I learned that you are everywhere regarded as a man of charm and intelligence; that you are an officer renowned for bravery and quick temper; that you are observed to spend a good deal of time on horseback in the Park; and that you prefer saddle of mutton to roast beef, in which you have been disappointed this evening.”

“Nay!” he cried, his head thrown back in laughter, “and shall we have the size of my boot and my preference in tailors as well?”

“It was an intelligence I could not, with delicacy, gather,” I replied, “but if you disappear with such alacrity again, I shall be certain to find it out.”

With great good humour the Lieutenant then began to converse quite freely, enquiring of my life in Bath and the circumstances of my family with a becoming interest. For my part, I quickly learned that he is the son of Lord Scargrave's sister, Julia, dead these niany years, and that his father was a dissolute rogue. Having reduced the Lady Julia to penury (for so I interpreted the Lieutenant's more generous words), the elder Mr. Hearst had the good sense to abandon his sons to her brother and depart for the Continent, where he subsequently died in the arms of his mistress. Lord Scargrave has had the rearing of the Hearst boys these twenty years; and it would not be remarkable if they looked to him as a father.

The Lieutenant added that he had tired of schooling while still at Eton, and spurned Oxford for the more brilliant ranks of the military; that he is at present a member of the Royal Horse Guards, resident in St. James, and is at Scargrave on leave through the Christmas holidays; though he failed to intimate that it was an enforced leave, due to his having recently killed a man.

Indeed, having spent some time in Lieutenant Hearst's company, I must wonder whether Miss Delahoussaye's romantic notions have not run away with what little sense she commands. For the Lieutenant seems as unlikely to kill a man as my dear brother Henry.

Fond of jokes, liberal in his smiles, incapable of giving offence to anybody, Tom Hearst is a ray of sun; but like the sun, can scorch when least expected. We had been half an hour along in the dance, and were nearing its close, when he turned the subject to Isobel, with some impertinence of manner.

“I may rejoice that my uncle has married,* he said, taking my hand as I exchanged places with my neighbour, “when my aunt's acquaintance proves so delightful.”

“Did you not rejoice, then, before I came to Scargrave?”

An anxious look, as having betrayed too much, was my reward, and an affectation of laughter. “For my own part,” the Lieutenant replied, “I take my uncle's happiness as the sole consideration. But others may feel a nearer interest.”

“I do not pretend to understand you.” I turned my back upon him in the dance and caught Isobel's eye as she made her way along the line.

“You must be aware, Miss Austen,” said Tom Hearst, “that an elderly man without children of his own may disappoint his family when he goes in pursuit of heirs.”