Maggie MacKeever by The Right Honourable Viscount Page B

buttonholes.
    His lazy smile took on a distinctly feral quality. “You may think you abhor levity; I suspect otherwise. And I should deem it a great honor to put myconvictions to the test. No, no, I shan’t allow you to take a rise out of me,” he added, as she parted her lips to speak. “That would be most improper, at least in the middle of Hyde Park. But if you are determined to come to cuffs, Miss Phyfe, as your indignant countenance suggests, I would be quite happy to have a turn-up with you in rather less public surroundings. You need only say the word.”
    A great many words occurred to Miss Phyfe, as indicated by her sparkling eyes and clenched fists. Lord Darby waited with no little curiosity to see which would gain pride of utterance.
    Lord Darby’s curiosity was destined to remain unsatisfied. Lady Barbour belatedly became aware that among the gentlemen clustered around the cabriolet was one who paid not the least attention to herself. The poor fellow must be tired of listening to Morgan ramble on about parliamentary reform and other such seditious stuff. “Pooh! Dull work!” she remarked over her shoulder to Miss Phyfe, simultaneously dimpling at her own bedazzled beaux. “Not another word, Morgan, I beg! You must perceive that no one wishes to hear about lunatic asylums and factories and other such dreariness!”
    “On the contrary, Lady Barbour,” interrupted the gentleman to whom Morgan had been speaking. “Odd as it may seem in me, I do.”
    “You do?” Sidoney awarded the gentleman her full attention, and consequently received his full impact. Her blue eyes blinked, then twinkled. “Oho!”
    By the indication that anyone should willingly endure her verbal assaults, even Miss Phyfe looked stunned. Then her expression grew, in turn, suspicious, astonished, crimson cheeked. “Surely you aren’t flirting with me!” she snapped.
    “No, no!” Lord Darby replied softly, meanwhile returning Lady Barbour’s twinkling glance. Lady Barbour was ripe for mischief, he thought. However, it was not Lady Barbour whom he wished to engage in that pursuit. Initially he had been intrigued by the paradoxes presented in the divertingly seditious, delightfully untidy, perversely pleasing person of Miss Phyfe. Then he had been amused by the intense enthusiasm with which she espoused her revolutionary precepts. Now he thought he would like to divert the passion bestowed by Miss Phyfe upon her revolutionary precepts to a much less worthy object, namely himself. “I am not throwing the hatchet at you—but only because you are too high-minded for such unworthy pursuits. Else I think I might very well flirt with you, Miss Phyfe. So we must be grateful that you are so serious.”
    For the worthy turn of her thoughts, which deterred the nation’s most shameless rakehell from seeking to strike up a flirtation, Miss Phyfe experienced not the least degree of gratitude. She was consequently furious with herself.
    He knew, of course, exactly how she felt, which added further to her uncertainty and her embarrassment. Morgan had a horrified suspicion that nothing would ever be the same again for her, and all because of a swarthy face and a pair of disenchanted gray eyes. “Serious?” she echoed, to break the silence that between them stretched taut.
    “Yes, my little virago, serious.” Lord Darby noticed that Lady Barbour’s twinkling look was growing a trifle strained. No gentleman to disappoint a hopeful lady, he gathered up his reins. “Were you less disapproving, I might be tempted to break my own rules.” In fact, he had already done so, and Lord Darby’s philosophy was to go on as he began.
     

Chapter Six
     
    Feeling rather foolish, Viscount English turned into Fleet Street, cast a wary glance at the ancient tall houses which overlooked the avenue, the shop windows that would be lit with candles come evening, the street criers selling hot green peas and oysters and gilt gingerbread. Once the whole