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de Stael?”
    “Perhaps, when it is published. I was under the misapprehension that I was to receive a pre-publication copy this evening. It turns out, however, that the work is far from completion. I understand you are also one of Pepper’s writers, Miss Nicols?”
    “Nesbitt.”
    “I beg your—ah, that explains the mystery.”
    Mrs. Speers, who I hoped had passed beyond speech, heard the question and answered for me. “Miss Nevins is very genteel. She is to write about the lot of ladies. You never saw such a dainty fist as she writes.”
    The turban, mine, I mean, though Mrs. Speers’s was also sitting aslant, was getting quite out of control. One end had worked loose and was falling like a misplaced tail down the back of my head. This annoyance, added to Mrs. Speers’s claim for my gentility, made me blush bright pink. With an astonished and amused Lord Paton pretending to notice nothing amiss, I pulled the fringed tail over my shoulder and held it, as though it were a shawl.
    “I take it you are familiar with the Quarterly Review, Miss Nesbitt,” he said. His dark eyes roved the room.
    “Yes, Papa subscribed to it when I was at home.”
    The roving eyes returned to me. “And now that you have, apparently, left home, I hope you will subscribe yourself. I see an empty sofa by the grate. Shall we?”
    Triumph and misapprehension and hope did swift battle in my bosom. Hope won out, and I smilingly accompanied him to the sofa. I hoped to accomplish two things before he left; firstly to convince him I was not of the same social stamp as the company in which he found me, and secondly to get a review of my article in the Quarterly. Much guile and flattery would be required to perform these two miracles, but I was ready to be as clever and insincere as necessary.
    “You mentioned having left home, Miss Nesbitt. Is ‘home’ very far away?” he asked when we were seated.
    “I come from Milverton, only a day away.”
    “It’s rather unusual for a young lady to leave home and set up on her own. I expect you are staying with relatives in Bath?”
    “I am with my cousin, Miss Potter.” I glanced in her direction and saw Annie, that model of dour respectability, playfully fighting off Pepper’s attempts to refill her glass. Mrs. Speers, in the throes of a nap, had her head lolling on Pepper’s shoulder with her feathers splayed over his shirtfront and her mouth open. Altogether they presented a very model of aging dissolution. I expected Lord Paton to be shocked at this sort of carrying-on, but he smiled blandly.
    “Have you been with Pepper’s magazine long?” he asked.
    “No, I shall be making my debut in the next issue.”
    He smiled again, more warmly. “I dare say you have some hard things to say about gentlemen. The Ladies’ Journal is not usually kind to us.”
    I felt a compelling urge to pour out the whole story of the iniquity recently visited on me. He seemed an understanding man. If he had any milk of human kindness, he would assist my effort to earn a living. Yet to burden a total stranger with any intimate details was too vulgar. I said vaguely, “You may find my essay harsh. I was stinging from a—a personal injustice when I wrote it. Had I permitted time to soften my first anger, I might have dealt less strongly.”
    His voice was full of concern. “Men can be beasts, sometime. Was it a father, husband ...” Sympathy glazed his dark eyes. I swear if we had been alone, he would have held my hand.
    All in a fluster, I said swiftly, “Oh, I am not married!”
    “I wondered, as Mrs. Speers seemed a little uncertain of your name. I thought perhaps you had recently divorced and reverted to your maiden name.”
    “Divorced!” I gasped. “Indeed no. My name is and always has been Miss Nesbitt.”
    “Your father, then, is the culprit? Disinherited, I take it?”
    “Yes, I have suddenly found myself impoverished. It was ill done of him, though one ought not to speak ill of the dead.”
    Lord