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they were sent to Lady Graham’s place. Those we disapprove of are not amongst your things. You didn’t miss the half-dozen we considered unbecoming to an unmarried lady?”
    “You went through my personal effects! Rummaged through my trunks! Upon my word—”
    “No, no, you misunderstand the matter. Agnes did the rummaging, and selected for my perusal those gowns she thought too low-cut. Only the things you will be wearing in public. If you wish to outfit yourself in black lace in your boudoir, I haven’t a word to say about it.”
    “My peignoirs are none of your business!”
    “Yes, I have just said so.”
    “You shouldn’t have been looking at them, then.”
    “I had no intention of doing so, but my sister considered it such an odd thing to find that she brought it with the gowns to show me. Hardly an object one would think to see in a maiden’s closet, but in that of a lightskirt.”
    “You would know more about that than I. It happens the peignoir was a gift.”
    His hands tensed on the reins, causing the horses to jolt. “If you are accepting such gifts as that from men . . .’ he said, in an awful voice, and seemed unable to go on.
    “Frenchmen have very different ideas on what is suitable to give a niece for a gift. My great-uncle Montaigne, who is seventy-five, gave it to me in Paris.”
    “You would do well to be rid of it,” he said, in a somewhat mollified tone.
    “Perhaps Lady Graham would like it,” she answered blithely. “May I know what gowns . . . Clivedon, if you have taken my new green Italian silk!”
    “It was the first to go. Green never did suit those blue eyes, Barbara. And it wouldn’t make a jacket for Lady Graham either.”
    “I mean to wear it to Sefton’s rout!”
    “Did you? Might I suggest the blue jaconet instead. For a rout party, a muslin will do, and it is highly garnished and low-cut enough to be obviously not an afternoon gown, despite its having been worn for one.”
    “Where are my gowns? What have you done with them? If you’ve burned them, I’ll – I’ll get an edict against you.”
    “You mean a warrant for my arrest, I expect. The gowns are not burned. They will do well enough for a married lady, or a confirmed profligate, as the case may be,” he told her. “Where would you like to go for this drive, by the way? Bond Street? – No, it will only call to mind your lack of funds, and I am already bored with that subject. Let’s make it Hyde Park.”
    “I don’t care where you take me, so long as it isn’t Burlington House.”
    “I wouldn’t dream of stealing the thunder from Lady Graham’s treat.”
    “You are hateful! You’ve dreamed up the dullest possible things for me to do, while you—”
    “No waltzing or gambling at Oak Bay,” he reminded her, with a fleeting smile. “Don’t overestimate my week-end’s gaiety.”
    “I bet Lady Angela gave you a hand with my timetable.”
    “I take the entire credit for myself. No, to be fair, the concert of ancient music was not my idea. I had suggested the lecture of the Philosophical Society, but your hostess felt there would be unsavory literary types lurking there. Never mind, you will have a chance to waltz tonight and complain to all your beaux what a tyrant I am.”
    It was all that kept her from doing something utterly foolish. She looked forward to going to parties with Clivedon—it would set her higher than she had recently been perching, and she was curious too to see how he behaved with Lady Angela.
    “Getting over your sulks?” he asked. “Come, this is your last chance till tonight for any decent conversation or show of temper. Better take advantage of me. It is what I meant to say.”
    “It’s impossible to talk to you.”
    “How do you know? You never tried. Oh, you’ve flirted with me in the past and lectured me in the present, but we have never talked. Now, as your guardian, I should like to know a little more about you. What is it you enjoy to do? What sort of people