“Aye, weel, deil’s the penny ye’ll get from me,” snaps he. “Enough is bein’ spent on wanton folly as it is,” and it seemed to me he darted a look at his vinegary spouse, who sniffed and coloured a bit. What’s this, I wondered: surely she hasn’t been asking him to buy her a pair of colours? Horse Guards wouldn’t have taken her, anyway, not for a commission: farrier-sergeant, perhaps, but no higher.

No more was said at dinner, which ended in a merry atmosphere of poisonous ill-will, but I got the explanation from Elspeth when we had retired for the night. It seemed that her mother had been growing increasingly concerned at her inability to get Elspeth’s two virgin sisters married off: the oldest girl, Mary, had been settled on some commercial creature in Glasgow, and was breeding at a rare rate, but Agnes and Grizel were still single. I said surely there were enough fortune-hunters in Scotland ready to take a shot at her father’s money, but she said no, her mother had discouraged them. She was flying higher, reasoning that if Elspeth had been able to get me, who had titled relatives and was at least half-way into the great world of fashionable society, Agnes and Grizel could do even better.

“She’s mad,” says I. “If they had your looks it might be a half-chance, but one sight of your dear parents is going to scare any eligible sprig a mile off. Sorry, m’dear, but they ain’t acceptable, you know.”

“My parents certainly lack the advantages,” says Elspeth seriously. Marrying me had turned her into a most wonderful snob. “That I admit. But father is extremely rich, as you are aware—”

“To hear him, it’s no fault of ours if he is.”

“—and you know, Harry, that quite a few of our titled acquaintances are not too nice to look above a fine dowry. I think, with the right introductions, that Mama might find very suitable husbands for them. Agnes is plain, certainly, but little Grizel is really pretty, and their education has been quite as careful as my own.”

It isn’t easy for a beautiful woman with blue eyes, a milky complexion, and corn-gold hair to look pompous, especially when she is wearing only a French corset decorated with pink ribbons, but Elspeth managed it. At that moment I was overcome again with that yearning affection for her that I sometimes felt, in spite of her infidelities; I can’t explain it, beyond saying that she must have had some magic quality, something to do with the child-like thoughtful look she wore, and the pure, helpless stupidity in her eyes. It is very difficult not to like a lovely idiot.