“Malice?  Why?  Just because I wanted to see how you and Alixe Ruthven would behave when thrust into each other’s arms?  Oh, Captain Selwyn—­what a harmless little jest of mine to evoke all that bitterness you so smilingly poured out on me! . . .  But I forgave you; I’ll forgive you more than that—­if you ask me.  Do you know”—­and she laid her small head on one side and smiled at him out of her pretty doll’s eyes—­“do you know that there are very few things I might not be persuaded to pardon you?  Perhaps”—­with laughing audacity—­“there are not any at all.  Try, if you please.”

“Then you surely will forgive me for what I have come to ask you,” he said lightly.  “Won’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, her pink-and-white prettiness challenging him from every delicate feature—­“yes—­I will pardon you—­on one condition.”

“And what is that, Mrs. Fane?”

“That you are going to ask me something quite unpardonable!” she said with a daring little laugh.  “For if it’s anything less improper than an impropriety I won’t forgive you.  Besides, there’d be nothing to forgive.  So please begin, Captain Selwyn.”

“It’s only this,” he said:  “I am wondering whether you would do anything for me?”

“Anything! Merci!  Isn’t that extremely general, Captain Selwyn?  But you never can tell; ask me.”

So he bent forward, his clasped hands between his knees, and told her very earnestly of his fears about Gerald, asking her to use her undoubted influence with the boy to shame him from the card-tables, explaining how utterly disastrous to him and his family his present course was.

“He is very fond of you, Mrs. Fane—­and you know how easy it is for a boy to be laughed out of excesses by a pretty woman of experience.  You see I am desperately put to it or I would never have ventured to trouble you—­”

“I see,” she said, looking at him out of eyes bright with disappointment.

“Could you help us, then?” he asked pleasantly.

“Help us, Captain Selwyn?  Who is the ‘us,’ please?”

“Why, Gerald and me—­and his family,” he added, meeting her eyes.  The eyes began to dance with malice.

“His family,” repeated Rosamund; “that is to say, his sister, Miss Erroll.  His family, I believe, ends there; does it not?”

“Yes, Mrs. Fane.”

“I see. . . .  Miss Erroll is naturally worried over him.  But I wonder why she did not come to me herself instead of sending you as her errant ambassador?”

“Miss Erroll did not send me,” he said, flushing up.  And, looking steadily into the smiling doll’s face confronting him, he knew again that he had failed.

“I am not inclined to be very much flattered after all,” said Rosamund.  “You should have come on your own errand, Captain Selwyn, if you expected a woman to listen to you.  Did you not know that?”

“It is not a question of errands or of flattery,” he said wearily; “I thought you might care to influence a boy who is headed for serious trouble—­that is all, Mrs. Fane.”