Vixen In Velvet. Loretta Chase

mysterious smile. But I’d forgotten how quick-witted she was. That was no small kindness she did, turning the audience’s mood.”

      “You don’t know the half of it,” Lisburne said. “Your poetical event wasn’t the only thing she saved. My cousin Gladys almost got Valentine in a duel.”

      “Was your cousin Gladys the girl who gave the noisy fellow what for?” Swanton said. “I couldn’t see her. Men were standing up, and she was behind a pillar. And I couldn’t hear exactly what she said. But her voice is splendid! So melodious. A beautiful tone.”

      Lisburne had never thought about Gladys’s voice. What she said was so provoking that one never noticed the vocal quality.

      “Gladys is best heard at a distance,” he said. Lancashire, he thought, would be an acceptable distance at present.

      Swanton closed the portfolio, his brow furrowed. “I’ll have to thank Miss Noirot. No, that’s insufficient. I need to find a way to return the favor. Without her, we should have had a debacle. That will teach me to let these things run on for so long. An hour, no more, in future.”

      “But the girls want you to wax poetic all day and all night,” Lisburne said. “Half of them had to be dragged out of the lecture hall. If you give them only an hour, they’ll feel cheated.”

      Swanton was still frowning. “Something to do with girls,” he said. “They take in charity cases or some such.”

      “Who does?”

      “Mesdames Noirot,” Swanton said. “Somebody told me. Did Miss Noirot mention it? Or was it Clevedon?”

      “I know they took in a boy they found on the street,” Lisburne said.

      Swanton nodded. “They do that sort of thing. I’d better look into it. I might be able to arrange an event to raise funds for them.” He grimaced. “But something less boring and … funereal.”

      “I’ll look into it,” Lisburne said. “You’ve got your hands full, fending off all those innocent maidens whose adulation you’re not allowed to take advantage of. I’m the one with nothing to do.”