“Only so long as they agree with him,” the Dowager snapped. “But loyalty is not a bad virtue. It’s quite right for you to stick up for your friend, Harry Carrington. It’s the sort of thing your father would have done.”

She spoke to Harry, but she looked at Gretna. And then, as she passed on her way, Gretna felt with certainty that she had won that august lady’s approval when she had least expected it.

“Phew! I did not think we would run into her,” Sir Harry said in the tones of a boy who had just come through a gruelling interview with his Headmaster.

“She is very frightening,” Gretna observed.

“Frightening! I would rather face a firing squad any day than pass an hour with the old lady. Julien used to have her to stay at Stade Hall and force Harriet and me to dine and entertain her. We always used to make all sorts of excuses to avoid going, but he would insist.”

Gretna could guess how determined the Marquis would be.

“They were pretty difficult dinner parties I can tell you,” Sir Harry went on. “At the same time the old lady has a sense of fun. The stories she used to tell me about my father in his young days made him furious when he heard about them.”

“Was she gay?” Gretna asked.

“Gay!” Sir Harry repeated. “She was the reigning toast. Had the whole place by the ears because of her carryings on. She was always twitting Julien with being too staid and pompous. Invariably she sets him down a peg and she is about the only person who can do it, I can tell you that.”

“Is the Marquis so formidable then?” Gretna enquired.

“At times he’s a devil!” Sir Harry confessed. “You know what a friend he has been to me and how much I admire him. But when he is angry, well, he is pretty nearly as bad as his grandmother and that’s something I don’t like to think about.”

Gretna felt herself shiver. If the Marquis was angry with her, then what hope had she of assuaging his wrath or even persuading him to forget it, when his very friends were afraid of him.

She wished, for some obscure reason that she could not even explain to herself, that she could have a talk with the Dowager Marchioness. She did not know why, but she felt that she would like to hear more from her about her grandson. Then she knew that such an idea was impossible.

That night, when they reached home from a party, Maria put her arm round Gretna’s shoulder and said,

“You look tired, dearest. Have you been doing too much lately?”

“No, indeed,” Gretna answered. “It is just that it was rather hot and I don’t think that I enjoyed the ball as much tonight as I have on other occasions.”