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voice from the window seat remarked, “What a jealous lot of frumps.”
     
    “Susan! I had forgotten you were there. Do not be rude about my friends.”
     
    “No friends of yours. You may think me stupid and ill educated, Aunt, but with my looks there is one thing I have come to recognize and that is jealousy.”
     
    “Why on earth would they be jealous of me?”
     
    “Oh, take a look at yourself. You are not pretty or beautiful, but I would say you are now a vastly modish and attractive-looking lady.”
     
    “Why, thank you, Susan.” Harriet studied herself cautiously in the glass. “Do you really think so?”
     
    “Yes, you know I never say what I do not think.”
     
    For the first time, Harriet felt a warm glow of pure affection for her niece.
     
    Lord Dangerfield returned to London to find piles of invitation cards waiting for him. The fact that he was to attend the Season had obviously got about. He flipped through them, wondering in a way why he was bothering, why he had suddenly decided to find a wife. He debated whether to call on his mistress or go to his club. His mistress was a widow, Mrs. Verity Palfrey, of good ton and loose morals. His arrangement with her had lasted for two years.
     
    He decided to go to his club.
     
    The first person he saw in the coffee room was Viscount Ampleforth, who was looking with loathing at a glass of seltzer.
     
    “Bad head?” asked the earl sympathetically.
     
    “The worst.” Ampleforth looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “Love and liquor don’t mix.”
     
    The earl sat down and stretched out his long legs. “What is this, Ampleforth? Do you need the advice of an older man?”
     
    “Not in this case,” said Lord Ampleforth gloomily. He took a sip of seltzer and shuddered. “I ain’t talking about wenching, I’m talking about love, pure love, all that stuff the poets maunder on about.”
     
    “Dear me, and who is this paragon of virtue who has stolen your heart?”
     
    “Miss Susan Colville.”
     
    “Never heard of her.”
     
    “She is new to town. But I met her last January at a posting house. She is a divine angel but guarded by a frump of a dragon called Miss Harriet Tremayne.”
     
    “Miss Tremayne is known to me, Ampleforth, and you will speak of her with respect in the future, or I shall have to call you out.”
     
    “Forgive me. I caught only a glimpse of the drag—of Miss Tremayne when she and the divinity were leaving in the morning. The light was bad. Forgive me. But this is splendid! If you are acquainted with Miss Tremayne, perhaps you can get me an introduction.”
     
    “I know Miss Tremayne only slightly and do not know where she resides.”
     
    “In Berkeley Square, about five doors along from Gunter’s. One of her servants told my man that Miss Tremayne has bought a new phaeton and is to take Miss Colville out this very afternoon driving in the park. Perhaps we could go together and you could introduce me there.”
     
    “Sorry, Ampleforth, I have other things to do.”
     
    “You might help out a despairing fellow!”
     
    “You will see plenty of your charmer at the Season.”
     
    “I won’t get near her,” said Lord Ampleforth gloomily.
     
    The earl spent some hours talking to friends, having a boxing session at Gentleman Jackson’s Saloon in Bond Street, and choosing material for a waistcoat. It was only when he noticed the time on a church clock and registered that the fashionable hour for driving in Hyde Park—five o’clock—was not far off that he was suddenly overcome with curiosity to see the formidable Miss Tremayne again.
     
    He went home quickly and ordered his carriage to be brought around from the mews and set off in the direction of the park.
     
    At first Harriet was enjoying the pleasure of tooling her smart new phaeton too much to realize what a sensation Susan, in blue muslin and chip straw hat embellished with flowers, was causing. But once she turned smartly in at the gates of the