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persistently, like the buzzing of a mosquito. A lovely girl, with a rich father, near enough to London to be assured of the company of many young men – it was extraordinary, whatever way one looked at it, that someone like Phillida had not been betrothed before.
    Then he remembered the glances that Lady Gillingham had given him and the manner in which she had shown all too clearly that she was not particularly interested in either of her step-daughters. That, of course, was the explanation! Rodney felt the frown easing from between his eyes. Catherine Gillingham had kept both Phillida and Lizbeth in the background and had done nothing to help their chances of matrimony.
    Something that had happened at supper came to Rodney’s mind. He had turned to Lizbeth who was sitting silent at the other side of the table and asked.
    “Why are you called Lizbeth?”
    “I was christened Elizabeth,” she said, “but found it a difficult name to pronounce as soon as I could talk. My mother had the same name and it was thought to be too complicated to have two of us answering when somebody called “Elizabeth” Now it does not matter, I am the only one left.”
    As she spoke, she looked up the table at her stepmother as if she challenged Catherine, and the older woman must answer her.
    “One Lizbeth is, I assure you, quite enough to bear with.”
    The words were spoken lightly, but there was a touch of steel behind them and Rodney saw that in response Lizbeth was smiling that mischievous, mocking smile which he knew had been directed at him when she came into the Great Chamber earlier in the evening.
    It was as if she had known that he was embarrassed at finding her a daughter of the house rather than the lodge keeper’s daughter. At the same time she had made it a bond between them, a secret bond, so that instead of saying openly they had met before they greeted each other formally as if they were strangers.
    Phillida’s beauty delighted him, and yet, again and again during supper, he found himself watching Lizbeth. Her face was unexpected. It was pretty and yet there was so much more in it than mere prettiness. Her voice, too, was engaging. He found himself listening while she was talking with her brother, a languid youth to whom Rodney took an instantaneous dislike.
    He was not alone in this, he discovered, for later Sir Harry spoke disparagingly and almost apologetically of his son.
    “He likes writing poems! Poems! God’s truth, at his age I was full-blooded – either chasing a woman or seeking an opportunity for a fight. I know not what the young men of today are coming to, but an ode to a bullfinch was never my idea of amusement!”
    “Nor mine, sir,” Rodney agreed.
    He could detect anger and a sense of frustration behind Sir Harry’s voice. He could understand what a bitter disappointment such a son must be to a man who had always lived rapaciously and to a great degree gluttonously; yet there was a vitality and strength about Sir Harry which made Rodney understand why so many people compared him with the late monarch.
    He had a vast sense of humour and when something amused him his laughter would seem to come from the very depths of his protruding stomach. He would stand with his legs apart, his hands resting where his hips had once been, and he would throw back his head and the roar of his laughter would go echoing round the room. One would understand then that he enjoyed life, that living was to him a continuous feast of experience and interest.
    Little wonder then that he found it difficult to understand a son languid and effeminate, whose interest was in scribbling on parchment with a quill pen.
    There was another side to Sir Harry too. He was shrewd where money was concerned and with regard to obtaining an advantage for himself. Just before they retired for the night Rodney had caught a gleam in his host’s eye as he spoke of the marriage settlement which must be made upon Phillida before the actual ceremony