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‘Oh, no, not a bit!’ she said, tucking her hand in his ar him into her bedchamber ‘Let ht all the candles, dearest, and then we may be comfortable The money that is spent on candles in this house! I shouldn’t have thought it

possible if Dinting hadn’t shown me the chandler’s bill which, I must say, I wish she had not, for what, I ask you, Kit, is the use of knowing the cost of candles? One must have them, after all, and even your father never desired me to purchase tallow ones’

‘I suppose onea taper to so-table

‘No, no, nothing ht the ones on the mantelpiece, dearest! Yes, that is much better! Now come and tell me all about yourself!’

She had drifted over to an elegant day-bed, and patted it invitingly, but Kit did not i about hi: ‘Why, how is this, Maarden, and now one would think oneself at the bottom of the sea!’

As this was the impression she had hoped to create when, at stupendous cost, she had had the rooreen, she was pleased, and said approvingly: ‘Exactly so! I can’t think how I endured those co – particularly when poor Mr Bruo that I was one of the few fereen becomes better than any other colour’

‘It does,’ he agreed His eyes alighted on the bed, and crinkled at the corners as he saw that the billowing curtains were of gauze ‘Very dashing! Improper, too’

An enchanting ripple of laughter broke froe! Do you think the room pretty?’

He ca her hands to his lips, and planting a kiss in its palm ‘Yes, like yourself: pretty and absurd!’

‘And like you!’ she retorted

He dropped her hand, not unnaturally revolted ‘Good God?–?! No, Mama!’

‘Well, absurd, at all events,’ she a, however, that it would have been impossible to have found two more handsome men than her twin sons

The Polite World, to which they belonged, would have said,pair, but by no means as handsome as had been their father Neither had inherited the classical regularity of his features: they favoured their h she was an accredited Beauty dispassionate persons were agreed that her loveliness lay not so much in any perfection of countenance as in her vivacious charm This, asserted her more elderly admirers, was comparable to the charm of the Fifth Duke of Devonshire’s first wife There were other points of resemblance between her and the Duchess: she adored her children, and she was recklessly extravagant

As for Kit Fancot, at four-and-twenty he was a well-built young ood shoulders, and an excellent leg for the prevailing fashion of skin-tight pantaloons He was darker than his old; and there was a firmness about his mouth which hers lacked But his eyes were very like hers: lively, their colour between blue and gray, and laughter rarely far fro smile as well; and this, with his easy unaffected eneral favourite He was as like his brother as fourpence to a groat, only thoseable to tell them apart What difference there was did not lie perceptibly in feature or in stature, unless they were stood side by side, when it could be seen that Kit was a shade taller than Evelyn, and that Evelyn’s hair showed a triflecould detect the real difference between them, for it was subtle, and one of expression: Kit’s eyes were the kinder, Evelyn’s the h than to frown, but Kit could look grave for no reason that Evelyn could discover; and Evelyn could plun to one of Kit’s more even temper As children they had squabbled amicably, and turned as one to annihilate any intruder into their factions; during boyhood it had been Evelyn who inaugurated their eous exploits, and Kit who extricated therew tostretches of tience weakened the link between them They were not in the least unhappy when apart, for each had his own interests, but when they h they had been parted for no more than a week

Since they had come down from Oxford they had seen little of one another It was the custoer son to embrace a political career, and Kit entered the diploe of his uncle, Henry Fancot, who had just been rewarded for his labours in the ambassadorial field with a barony He was sent first to Constantinople; but as his appointment as a junior secretary coincided with a period of calan to wish that he had persuaded his father to buy him a pair of colours; and even to wonder, with the optimisht not be possible to convince his lordship that he hadplace in Europe; and it seemed intolerable to a spirited youth already dedicated to the service of his country to be thrust into a backwater Fortunately, since the late Earl was quite theof parents, he was transferred to St Petersburg before the oaded him into revolt If he had owed his start in diplomatic life to his uncle, it was his father as responsible for his second step: Lord Denville ht be inflexible, but he was sincerely attached to Kit, and not altogether unsympathetic His health was uncertain, and for several years he had taken little part in politics, but he had soood friends in the administration Kit was sent, at the end of 1813, to join General Lord Cathcart’s staff, and thereafter had neither the time nor the inclination to complain of boredom Cathcart was not only ambassador to the Tsar, but also the British Military Commissioner attached to his arn of 1814 For his part, Cathcart accepted Kit unenthusiastically, and would have paid no more heed to him than to any of his other secretaries if his son had not struck up an instant friendship with hioon Guards, was acting as his father’sdispatches to the several English officers attached to the Russian ar headquarters he naturally sought out his only contemporary on the ambassadorial staff Inevitably, Kit came under his lordship’s eye, and soon found favour Cathcart thought hi, and easy manners: exactly the sort of well-bred lad as invaluable to an overworked and elderly diplorand scale He had tact and address, and, for all his engaging lightheartedness, an instinctive discretion When his lordship journeyed to Vienna to attend the Congress there, he took Kit with hi him with aloof kindness for his uncle’s sake, introduced him to the newly-appointed ambassador, who happened to be his own half-brother, and Lord Stewart took a fancy to hiht of Stewart, whoress dubbed Lord Pumpernickel, he kept to hilad not to be sent back to St Petersburg when the as over By then he had not only recovered fro been appointed to Wellington’s staff in time to have been present at Waterloo, but had becoled policies of the Peace that St Petersburg would have seemed to him almost as remote from the hub of international affairs as Constantinople

He had met Evelyn abroad twice in the past two years, but he had only once visited England, to attend his father’s funeral

Lord Denville had died, quite suddenly, in the early spring of 1816; and since that date, some fifteen er son She thought at first that he had not altered at all, and said so Then she corrected herself, and said: ‘No, that’s silly! You look olde