“As soon as may be,” is the reply. “I’ve the promise of a commission by my uncle’s influence! Come, come, lad o’ my heart,” laughs he through his own misty eyes. “The wind’s not in my ship’s sails yet. I promised Mr. Brummell for his expedition to Ivy Dene for the morrow, and I’ll hardly be ready in all points to get under way before you’re back in town from your visit to Brookwood; whence I foresee you’ll fly with Diana’s ‘yes’ betwixt her kiss on your cheek.” ’Twas now Mr. Brummell’s famous and long-talked-about party to Ivy Dene this very next day that dawned. Now, Her Ladyship had vowed to herself that, come what might, she would avoid this, even did Fate keep her in London. ’Twas no part of her program, although she could do it as well as any sporting squire, to make for her future any such memory as riding a horse astride for thirty miles out and back, in the company a half-score of gentlemen must furnish; yet, so is each of us rather the creature of circumstance than will, that the hour appointed found Peg mounted on a gray with blood in his veins, and a-pacing down Piccadilly to the White Horse beside Beau Brummell’s bay. She could not, with Sir Robin’s murderous pact in her perpetual view, make up her mind to omit a company that should include Sir Percy. It seemed to her that any day spent by him out of her sight might prove fatal; that Sir Robin’s hirelings might conceive it better to their purpose to put an end to their intended victim before the Sunday. So, aching with an insane but not unnatural impulse to pull rein and confess all; burning with shame to remember ’twas of Lady Diana’s sweetheart she was thinking; mortified beyond belief every time her saddle grazed her breeches; intent lest an unsuspected sword should flash from the hedge-rows, the sheep-cotes, or the shadows of Epstowe Forest, which they traversed on their way; My Lady Peggy, wishing amidst all this that she had never come to town, yet contrived to display a very cheerful mien, to laugh as loud as she dared, keeping her high notes cautiously to herself, as she had in her speech ever since the night, as Sir Robin, she had made her first appearance in Lark Lane—to join in jest, quip, prank, such as a gay cavalcade of jovial gentlemen were then wont to indulge in. Such are some of the strange vicissitudes incident to being that most amazingly delicious compound, a wilful and withal true-hearted woman.