“We do not have to go to Wadham,” he said. “The ball is to be held at their town house. I doubt if either of them ever set eyes on you before.”

“But the servants,” pleaded Alice. “They take some of the upper servants with them when they go to town. Mr. Bessant, for example…”

“He will hardly recognize the scullery maid Alice in the fascinating and beautiful young French Countess. Behave yourself! Odd’s Life! I swear I can hear your knees knocking.”

“I would rather not go,” said Alice stubbornly.

“Then find a husband on your own,” he snapped. “I shall go back to Wadham and continue my memoirs.” His figure began to shimmer and fade before her eyes.

“No! Don’t go!” capitulated Alice. “I will attend the ball.”

“Then let us leave,” he said quietly. “You have nothing to fear. Society is thin of social events in high summer. There is not much to choose from.”

“But he will recognize you!” said Alice suddenly. “The present Duke, that is.”

He shook his head. “I think not. I was not in these modern clothes when I appeared to haunt him.”

“The resemblance is nonetheless there. You look rather like him.”

“He will not notice, my child. No man really knows what he looks like. Let us summon Miss Fadden and be off.”

The Duke had seen to it that Alice had a splendid equipage in which to drive out. It was a yellow carriage with panels emblazoned with a well-executed shield and armorial bearings and drawn by two richly caparisoned horses. The Jehu on the box was dressed in a coat of many capes, a powdered wig and gloves à la Henri Quatre. Two spruce footmen in scarlet and silver livery with long canes in their hands completed the entourage.

Little Miss Fadden sighed with pleasure and gazed out of the carriage windows with the wide-eyed interest of a child.

Alice sat silently at her side, the Duke facing her. She thought miserably that the whole business was a sad farce—being escorted to a ball by a ghost to meet a marriageable young man. Alice decided that she did not really like high society, despite the fact, that with the exception of Webb, she had so far avoided its major pitfalls. She had steered clear of the harpylike dowagers who were only too anxious to befriend a seemingly friendless and attractive girl as bait to lure men to the side of their bony and incoherent daughters. She had avoided the censure of the middle-aged dandies with their large appetites and weak digestions who hated so many and abused so many as they sat together in the bow window of White’s Club in St. James’s. She had received vouchers for Almack’s—that center of snobbery—during the Season, and had danced in those famous Assembly Rooms without once having fallen foul of the all-powerful patronesses.