‘Dance away, my dear; I’ve no objection.’

‘But where’s the music?’

‘Oh, you can always have music.’

‘But where are my partners?’

The squire pointed at me.

‘You don’t want more than one at a time, eh?’ He corrected his error:  ’No, the fellow’s engaged in another quadrille.  Mind you, Miss Janet, he shall dance to your tune yet.  D’ ye hear, sir?’ The irritation excited by Captain Bulsted and Julia broke out in fury.  ’Who’s that fellow danced when Rome was burning?’

‘The Emperor Nero,’ said Janet.  ’He killed Harry’s friend Seneca in the eighty-somethingth year of his age; an old man, and—­hush, grandada!’ She could not check him.

’Hark you, Mr. Harry; dance your hardest up in town with your rips and reps, and the lot of ye; all very fine while the burning goes on:  you won’t see the fun of dancing on the ashes.  A nice king of Rome Nero was next morning!  By the Lord, if I couldn’t swear you’ll be down on your knees to an innocent fresh-hearted girl ’s worth five hundred of the crew you’re for partnering now while you’ve a penny for the piper.’

Janet shut his mouth, kissed him, and held his wine up.  He drank, and thumped the table.  ’We ’ll have parties here, too.  The girl shall have her choice of partners:  she shan’t be kept in the background by a young donkey.  Take any six of your own age, and six sensible men, to try you by your chances.  By George, the whole dozen ’d bring you in non-compos.  You’ve only got the women on your side because of a smart face and figure.’

Janet exclaimed indignantly, ‘Grandada, I’m offended with you’; and walked out on a high step.

‘Come, if he has the women on his side,’ said Captain Bulsted, mildly.

’He’ll be able to go partnering and gallopading as long as his banker ’ll let him, William—­like your gentleman!  That’s true.  We shall soon see.’

‘I leave my character in your hands, sir,’ said I, rising.  ’If you would scold me in private, I should prefer it, on behalf of your guests; but I am bound to submit to your pleasure, and under any circumstances I remember, what you appear to forget, that you are my grandfather.’

So saying, I followed the ladies.  It was not the wisest of speeches, and happened, Captain Bulsted informed me, to be delivered in my father’s manner, for the squire pronounced emphatically that he saw very little Beltham in me.  The right course would have been for me to ask him then and there whether I had his consent to start for Germany.  But I was the sport of resentments and apprehensions; and, indeed, I should not have gone.  I could not go without some title beyond that of the heir of great riches.

Janet kept out of my sight.  I found myself strangely anxious to console her:  less sympathetic, perhaps, than desirous to pour out my sympathy in her ear, which was of a very pretty shape, with a soft unpierced lobe.  We danced together at the Riversley Ball, given by the squire on the night of my father’s Ball in London.  Janet complimented me upon having attained wisdom.  ‘Now we get on well,’ she said.  ’Grandada only wants to see us friendly, and feel that I am not neglected.’