"Yes!" she breathed, her eyes sparkling. "That is how I think! What pleasure can one get if one neither hazards nor spends one's money?
Oh, well!" She shrugged one shoulder, dismissing the subject.
"Have you seen Tracy of late?"
"He was at a court ball I attended at Versailles, but I did not have a chance of speaking with him. I heard he was very popular at Paris."
"Ay!" she said proudly. "He has the French air. . . . I so desire to see him again, but I fear he does not think of returning. I know he was promised for the Duchess of Devonshire's rout months ago-before even the date was fixed, she so dotes on him-but I do not expect to see him there." She sighed and drummed on the ground with her diamond-buckled shoe. "Harry, I am chilled! Take me to the Pavilion! I doubt they are dancing-and Dicky will be there."
"Dicky?" he repeated. "Dicky! Lavinia, do not tell me there is another claimant to your heart?"
"Wicked, indelicate creature! 'Tis my husband!"
"Your husband! Enfin-"
She cast him a sidelong glance of mingled coquetry and reproof.
"Your mind is at rest again, I trust?"
"Of course! A husband? Pooh, a bagatelle, no more!"
"My husband is not a bagatelle!" she laughed. "I am very fond of him."
"This grows serious," he frowned. "'Tis very unfashionable, surely?"
She met his teasing eyes and cast down her lashes.
"Captain Lovelace, you may take me to the Pavilion."
"Sweet tormentor, not until you cease so to misname me."
"Harold, I am indeed chilly!" she said plaintively and snatched her hand from his lips. "No, no! People will stare-look, there is my odious brother returning! I declare I will not stay to listen to his hateful, sneering remarks! . . . Come!"
They walked across the grass together, keeping up a running fire of raillery, punctuated on his side by extravagant compliments filled with classical allusions, all more or less erroneous, and on hers by delighted little laughs and mock scoldings. So they came to the Pavilion, where the musicians fiddled for those who wished to dance, and where most of the company had assembled now that it was growing chilly without. Down one end of the hall, card-tables were set out, where members of both sexes diced and gambled, drinking glasses of burgundy or negus, the men toasting the ladies, and very often the ladies returning the toasts with much archness and low curtsying.
Lavinia cast off her capuchin and plumed her feathers, giving a surreptitious shake to her ruched skirts and smoothing her ruffles. She rustled forward with great stateliness, fan unfurled, head held high, her gloved fingers resting lightly on Lovelace's velvet-clad arm.