The conversation was about politics. FitzRobert had just said something about Mr. Gladstone.

"Fine man," Lambert agreed. "Knew his family." He nodded.

Of course. William Ewart Gladstone, "God's vicar in the Treasury," as he had been mockingly called, was a Manchester man. There was a ring of pride in Lambert's voice.

"Couldn't be less like the Prime Minister," FitzRobert went on, referring, no doubt, to Lord Palmerston's reputation for wit and good fellowship and the distinct enjoyment of life, its pleasures as well as its duties.

A thought crossed Rathbone's mind about Mr. Gladstone's fairly well known vigor regarding the opposite sex, and the occasionally understandable interpretation of his hospitality for the less fortunate of them, whose souls he believed he might save. However, in deference to the ladies present, especially Zillah, he forbore from making any remark. He caught FitzRobert's eye and kept his face perfectly composed, but with difficulty.

They were joined a moment later by another handsome woman, accompanied by two unmarried daughters. They were all dutifully introduced, and Rathbone saw the lady's eyes sparkle with interest as she automatically assessed his eligibility, his social status and his probable income. Apparently she found them all satisfactory. She smiled at him generously.

"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Sir Oliver. May I present my elder daughter, Margaret."

"How do you do, Sir Oliver," Margaret replied obediently. She was a comely enough girl with candid blue eyes and rather ordinary features. Her brown hair had been elaborately curled for the occasion. It probably became her better in its natural state, but an opportunity such as this was not to be wasted by informality. No artifice for glamour was left untried.

"How do you do, Miss Ballinger," Rathbone said civilly. He hated these forced conversations and wished more than ever that he had refused to come across with FitzRobert. Nothing he could possibly learn about Barton Lambert or his daughter would compensate for the awkwardness of it. In fact, it would be of no use whatever, because he did not intend to take Killian Melville's case, should it arise. It was Melville's own fault he was in this predicament, and he should use his common sense to get himself out of it, or else abide the consequences, which were more than likely to be only the same as those experienced by the majority of men in the world. Zillah Lambert was most attractive and would come with a handsome dowry. Left to his own choice he might well do very much worse.

"And my younger daughter, Julia," Mrs. Ballinger was saying to him.

"How do you do, Miss Julia." Rathbone inclined his head towards her. She was no prettier than her sister and had the same frank, almost amused stare.

"Did you attend the concert at Lady Thorpe's house yesterday evening?" Mrs. Ballinger was asking Mrs. Lambert. "We went for Margaret's sake. She is so fond of music, and of course is a most accomplished violinist, if I do say so myself." She turned to Rathbone with a bright smile. "Are you fond of music, Sir Oliver?"

Rathbone wanted to lie and say he was tone-deaf. He saw the eagerness in Mrs. Ballinger's face and the embarrassment in Margaret's. She must feel as if she were bloodstock being paraded in front of a prospective buyer. It was not far from the truth.

Mrs. Lambert smiled with inner satisfaction. She had already won and no longer needed to compete. The triumph of it was luminous in her eyes. Zillah herself looked serenely happy.

Rathbone felt like part of a group picnicking in the sun, and he was the only one aware of the clouds thickening over the horizon, and growing chill in the air.

Mrs. Ballinger was waiting for a reply.

Rathbone looked at Margaret, and his compassion overcame his sense and he answered with the truth.

"Yes, I am very fond of music, particularly the violin."

Mrs. Ballinger's answer was immediate.

"Then perhaps you would care to visit with us some occasion and hear Margaret play. We are holding a soiree next Thursday."

Margaret bit her lip and the color mounted up her face. She turned away from Rathbone, and he was quite certain she would have looked daggers at her mother had she dared. He wondered how many times before she had endured this scene, or ones like it.

He had walked straight into the trap. He was almost as angry as Margaret at the blatancy of it. And yet neither of them could do anything without making it worse.

Delphine Lambert was watching with an air of gentle amusement, her delicate mouth not quite smiling.

It was Julia Ballinger who broke the minute's silence.

"I daresay Sir Oliver does not have his diary to hand, Mama. I am sure he will send us a card to say whether he is able to accept, if we allow him our address."

Margaret shot her a look of gratitude.

Rathbone smiled. "You are perfectly correct, Miss Julia. I am afraid I am not certain of my engagements a week ahead. My memory is not as exact as I should like, and I should be mortified to find I had offended someone by failing to attend an invitation I had already accepted. Or indeed that a case kept me overlong where I had foreseen it might…"

"Of course," Margaret said hastily.

But Mrs. Ballinger did not give up so easily. She produced a card from her reticule and passed it to him. It noted her name and address. "You are always welcome, Sir Oliver, even if you are not able to confirm beforehand. We are not so very formal as to admit only those we expect when an evening of social pleasure is to be enjoyed."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ballinger." He took the card and slipped it into his pocket. He was sufficiently annoyed with her insen-sitivity that he might even go, for Margaret's sake. Looking at her now, standing stiffly with her shoulders squared, horribly uncomfortable, and knowing this ritual would be observed until she was either successfully married or past marriageable age, she reminded him faintly of Hester Latterly, whom he had come to know in some ways so well in the last few years. There was a similar courage and vulnerability in her, an awareness of precisely what was going on, a contempt for it, and yet a knowledge that she was inevitably caught up in it and trapped.

Of course, Hester was not any longer similarly caught. She had broken free and gone to the Crimea to nurse with Florence Nightingale, and returned changed forever. It was her personal loss that both her parents had died in the tragedy which indirectly had brought about her meeting with William Monk, and thus with Rathbone. It had also spared her the otherwise inevitable round of parties, balls, soirees, and attendances at any conceivable kind of social occasion until her mother had found her an acceptable husband. Acceptable to her family, of course, not necessarily to her.

But Hester must be about thirty now, and too old for most men to find her appealing-of which fact she could not be unaware. Standing in this glittering room with the music in the background and the press and hum of scores of people, the clink of glasses, the faint smells of warmth, champagne, stiff material and sometimes of flowers and perfume, he could not help wondering if it hurt her. And yet only a few months ago he had been so close to asking her to marry him. He had even led into an appropriate conversation. He could remember it now with a sudden wave of disappointment. He was certain she had known what he was going to say, and she had gently, very indirectly, allowed him to understand that she was not ready to give him an answer.

Had that been because she loved Monk?

He did not wish to believe that; in fact, he refused to. It would be like ripping the plaster off a wound to see if it was really as deep as one feared. He knew it would be.

And he would go and listen to Margaret Ballinger play her violin. Damn Mrs. Ballinger for insulting her so!