As Lady Isabel quitted the room, young Vane was careering through the corridor, throwing his head in all directions, and calling out,—­

“Lucy!  I want Lucy!”

“What do you want with her?” asked Madame Vine.

“Il m’est impossible de vous le dire madame,” responded he.  Being, for an Eton boy, wonderfully up in French, he was rather given to show it off when he got the chance.  He did not owe thanks for it to Eton.  Lady Mount Severn had taken better care than that.  Better care?  What could she want?  There was one whole, real, live French tutor—­and he an Englishman!—­for the eight hundred boys.  Very unreasonable of her ladyship to disparage that ample provision.

“Lucy cannot come to you just now.  She is practicing.”

“Mais, il le faut.  J’ai le droit de demander apres elle.  Elle m’appartient, vous comprenez, madame, cette demoiselle la.”

Madame could not forbear a smile.  “I wish you would speak English sense, instead of French nonsense.”

“Then the English sense is that I want Lucy and I must have her.  I am going to take her for a drive in the pony carriage, if you must know.  She said she’d come, and John’s getting it ready.”

“I could not possibly allow it,” said Madame Vine.  “You’d be sure to upset her.”

“The idea!” he returned, indignantly.  “As if I should upset Lucy!  Why, I’m one of the great whips at Eton.  I care for Lucy too much not to drive steadily.  She is to be my wife, you know, ma bonne dame.”

At this juncture two heads were pushed out from the library, close by; those of the earl and Mr. Carlyle.  Barbara, also, attracted by the talking, appeared at the door of her dressing-room.

“What’s that about a wife?” asked my lord of his son.

The blood mantled in the young gentleman’s cheek as he turned round and saw who had spoken, but he possessed all the fearlessness of an Eton boy.

“I intend Lucy Carlyle to be my wife, papa.  I mean in earnest—­when we shall both be grown up—­if you will approve, and Mr. Carlyle will give her to me.”

The earl looked somewhat impassable, Mr. Carlyle amused.  “Suppose,” said the latter, “we adjourn the discussion to this day ten years?”

“But that Lucy is so very young a child, I should reprove you seriously, sir,” said the earl.  “You have no right to bring Lucy’s name into any such absurdity.”

“I mean it, papa; you’ll all see.  And I intend to keep out of scrapes—­that is, of nasty, dishonorable scrapes—­on purpose that Mr. Carlyle shall find no excuse against me.  I have made up my mind to be what he is—­a man of honor.  I am right glad you know about it, sir, and I shall let mamma know it before long.”

The last sentence tickled the earl’s fancy, and a grim smile passed over his lips.  “It will be war to the knife, if you do.”

“I know that,” laughed the viscount.  “But I am getting a better match for mamma in our battles than I used to be.”