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be a shabby tiger?’
      ‘I thought it might, perhaps, be a little daunted.’
      ‘Well, it isn’t. It seems to be an entirely new tiger. I never had one before—only kindness to animals.’
     
      ‘My lady gave me a tiger,
      A sleek and splendid tiger,
      A striped and shining tiger.
      All under the leaves of life.’
     
      Nobody else, thought Harriet, had apparently suspected the tiger—except of course, old Paul Delagardie, whose ironic eyes saw everything.
      Peter’s final comment had been: ‘I have now completely given myself away. No English vocabulary. No other Englishwoman. And that is the most I can say for myself.’
      Gradually, they were shaking off the clustering lights of London. The car gathered speed. Peter looked back over his shoulder.
      ‘Not waking the baby, are we, Bunter?’
      ‘The vibration is at present negligible, my lord.’
     
    *****
     
      That led memory farther back.
      ‘This question of children, Harriet. Do you feel strongly about it?’
      ‘Well, I’m not quite sure. I’m not marrying you for the sake of having them, if that’s what you mean.’
      ‘Thank Heaven! He does not wish to regard himself, nor yet to be regarded, in that agricultural light....You don’t particularly care about children?’
      ‘Not children, in the lump. But I think it’s just possible that I might some day come to want—’
      ‘Your own?’
      ‘No—yours.’
      ‘Oh!’ he had said, unexpectedly disconcerted. ‘I see. That’s rather—Have you ever considered what kind of a father I should make?’
      ‘I know quite well. Casual, apologetic, reluctant, and adorable.’
      ‘If I was reluctant, Harriet, it would only be because I have a profound distrust of myself. Our family’s been going a pretty long time. There’s Saint-George, who has no character, and his sister, with no vitality—to say nothing of the next heir after Saint-George and myself, who is a third cousin and completely gaga. And if you think about my own compound of what Uncle Paul calls nerves and nose—’
      ‘I am reminded of what Clare Clairemont said to Byron: “I shall always remember the gentleness of your manners and the wild originality of your countenance.”’
      ‘No, Harriet—I mean that.’
      ‘Your brother married his own cousin. Your sister married a commoner and her children are all right. You wouldn’t be doing it all yourself, you know— I’m common enough. What’s wrong with me?’
      ‘Nothing, Harriet. That’s true. By God, that’s true. The fact is, I’m a coward about responsibility and always have been. My dear—if you want it and are ready to take the risk—’
      ‘I don’t believe it’s such a risk as all that.’
      ‘Very well. I leave it to you. If you will and when you will. When I asked you, I rather expected you to say. No.’
      ‘But you had a horrible fear I might say, “Yes, of course!”’
      ‘Well, perhaps. I didn’t expect what you did say. It’s embarrassing to be taken seriously—as a person.’
      ‘But, Peter, putting aside my own feelings and your morbid visions of twin gorgons or nine-headed hydras or whatever it is you look forward to—would you like children?’
      She had been amused by the conflict in his self-conscious face. ‘Egotistical idiot that I am,’ he had said finally, ‘yes. Yes. I should. Heaven knows why. Why does one? To prove one can do it? For the fun of boasting about “my boy at Eton”? Or because—?’
      ‘Peter! When Mr Murbles drew up that monstrous great long will for you, after we were engaged—’
      ‘Oh, Harriet!’
      ‘How did you leave your property? I mean, the real estate?’
      ‘All right,’ he said, with a groan, ‘the murder’s out. Entailed—I admit it. But Murbles expects that every man—damn it, don’t laugh like that, I couldn’t argue the point with Murbles—and every contingency was provided