Cards were much more to his liking than the musical entertainment that so often took place after dinner in the country. He had on various occasions won quite considerable sums from the Earl’s guests, who were not as good or as lucky at the game as he was.
In this room, he noted, there was no fire and he imagined with a slight amusement that Lady Sarah intended to receive him in the blue salon, which was a fitting background for her beauty and also the right setting for a proposal of marriage.
While he was thinking of it, he heard voices and realised they came from the blue salon and that the door connecting it with the room he was in was ajar.
“But surely, Sarah,” a girl’s voice asked, “you are not going to keep his Lordship waiting?”
“That, Olive, is exactly what I intend to do,” Lady
