Lady Peggy sits, gritting her teeth at the slit in her white flesh, with her back to the door and, betwixt the uproar and clinking and shuffling, she hears footsteps coming up the stairs. Some intuition bids her be the one to respond to the rapping that presently sounds out. “Asking your pardon,” murmurs Her Ladyship to her companions as she quits the table. When, as she opens, a new-caught street urchin speaks sharp, with saucer eyes in-peering at the quality. “An it please yer Lordships, there’s a fine gentlemen below as his name is Sir Robin McTart.” Peggy draws in, bangs the door in the boy’s face, squares about, and says: “By your leave, gentlemen, a most particular messenger awaits me below; for a few moments only, I crave your indulgence for my absence. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.” “No! no! no!” cry they all, save De Bohun, who is counting his cards, and Sir Wyatt who exclaims: “Yes, an it be a messenger on business for a fair lady; no, an it be otherwise. Gadzooks! Sir Robin, make a half-clean breast of it. Comes Mercury from Phyllis or from a mere man?” Peg answers: “I swear to you, Sirs, I go down on business of the gravest import to a lady,” and makes for the door. “Pledge her! Pledge her! a bumper! a bumper!” cry they all in one voice with much pleasant laughter. “Here’s to Sir Robin’s nameless fair! Zounds! but for so little yeared a personage to have two strings to his bow!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] V _Wherein Lady Peggy doth encounter her flouted lover, receiveth a rapier-prick: makes acquaintance of her hated rival and of Mr. Brummell._ And much more of a like nature reaches Lady Peggy as she plunges down the stairs and presently finds herself, by the light of the lamp of his chair, a-confronting Sir Robin McTart himself! “Nay, nay, Sir! I am not Kennaston of Kennaston,” responds Peg, looking grave, and making excellent show of her blood-stained, linen-bound wrist. “’Tis here he dwells, and, as I know well by reputation, you are a peaceful, law-abiding man, I’d counsel you not to mount. Such a company of cut-throat, cut-purse brawlers, Sir, as would not leave a farthing in your pocket or lace upon your shirt.” Sir Robin, as Her Ladyship had shrewdly guessed, drew back and shivered at this lively description. “Trust me, Sir Robin: hist!” Peg’s voice sinks to a mere whisper. “I am Lady Peggy’s best friend and neighbor at home; ’twould be her will, an she stood here, that you should not adventure your precious life in the unseemly crowd with which her brother hath seen fit to surround himself.” “Lud, Sir! Who are you,” chatters Sir Robin trembling betwixt delight and terror, “that knows so well the temper of Lady Peggy Burgoyne’s disposition? What’s your name, Sir?”