Lady Wilkes and Lady Bellamy, formidable dowagers both, bent their turbaned heads together. “Isn’t it disgraceful?” hissed Lady Wilkes, the loose folds of flesh at her neck quite taut, for once, with excitement. “Knitting! In the middle of a ball, too!”

Lady Bellamy craned her tortoiselike head around her friend to stare at the offending knitter. The needles flashed hypnotically in the light as Miss Fadden’s busy fingers bungled stitch after stitch.

“She’s not doing it properly,” said Lady Bellamy. “She’s about to turn the heel any moment and I don’t think she can.”

“Just ignore her, dear,” replied Lady Wilkes. “Tis unwise to encourage eccentrics.”

Lady Bellamy bit her rouged underlip in distress. “But I hate to see such a mess. I declare I cannot bear it a minute longer. Do change places with me.”

Startled, her friend complied.

“Now,” said Lady Bellamy severely to Miss Fadden. “That will not do at all, you know. You are making a sad botch of your stitches.”

“I know,” said Miss Fadden simply. “But I find it very soothing. But you are right. Perhaps since I am knitting, I should learn to do it well. Here!” She thrust the wool and needles into Lady Bellamy’s hands. “Do show me.”

Lady Bellamy cast an anguished look around. But the temptation was too much. “Very well,” she said. “Now watch closely.”

When Alice finally escaped from her partner, she headed straight for Miss Fadden, bent on reprimanding that lady.

But Miss Fadden by that time was surrounded by a whole court of elderly ladies. Turbans and feathered headdresses were bent over a piece of lumpy mangled knitting and the air rang with competitive advice. “It’s not fair,” remarked one elderly lady sourly, “why Miss Fadden should get away with bringing her work to the ballroom and I have to sit with my hands folded. I could show you all a thing or two. I have a good mind to despatch my John to fetch my workbasket.”

Several startled glances were cast in her direction. “Why not?” asked Lady Bellamy, quite flushed with excitement. In no time at all, servants were being sent out into the night to bring workbaskets.

Alice’s next partner claimed her and she wisely decided to leave Miss Fadden alone. It seemed as if the companion had found friends already.

Sir Peregrine meanwhile was warming to the Duke. He had already drunk more claret than was good for him and it had loosened his tongue. “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir,” said Sir Peregrine, “you don’t talk like a Frenchie, you don’t even look like one. Damme, if you don’t look a good bit like Haversham.”

“Nonsense,” said the Duke languidly. “I have lived in this country for the past twenty-four years. Left just after the Terror. I have practically forgot my native tongue.”