A Christmas Gambol by Joan Smith

great.
    “Where will you find a lady whose taste reaches the rarefied heights of your own, Sir Giles?” she asked with a teasing smile.
    “I make no claim to intellectual heights. If others say so, then it speaks of their own lack. I merely prefer good books to bad. A book like Chaos fulfills a purpose, a sort of opium for the lower class, who enjoy a love story. It is not a great book, but it is good in its way. Light entertainment.”
    “Then you will not castigate me in your magazine? It is to your review that one looks for a real critique.”
    “I cannot promise a puffing piece, but I do understand this is your first effort. We gentlemen are always sympathetic to young maidens. My publication does not usually review romantic novels, but perhaps an essay on that sort of writing for the masses, with Chaos used as an example. A good example. I do not think you will dislike what I have to say.”
    “You are too kind, Sir Giles,” Cicely simpered.
    They continued their conversation throughout the meal. Before it was over, Sir Giles condescended to say he would enjoy another opportunity to discuss her next work with her. Cicely expressed all the delight he expected, and said shyly that she had something written already. Despite his heavy burden of work, he agreed to look at it. When he asked if he might have the pleasure of driving out with her the next morning, she was in alt.
    The Murrays had not planned any formal entertainment after dinner. George Crabbe agreed to give a reading from his new work. The party broke up early. Cicely felt she had some reason to crow, after her success with Sir Giles. Montaigne, however, was in the boughs as he drove her to Berkeley Square.
    “There was no need to grovel to the jackanapes,” he scowled.
    “I thought he was charming. I agreed with nearly everything he said—including Miss Davis’s violet eyes. Oh, pardon me. That is, Eugenie’s violet eyes. Who really wrote the book, Montaigne? Was it Miss Davis? Did you get me to come as a favor to your lost love?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. Aunt Irma wrote it.”
    “Surely you mean Aunt Ethel!”
    He stiffened in alarm. “That’s what I meant. Aunt Ethel. And she doesn’t even know Debora, so obviously any resemblance is a coincidence.”
    “Were you very much in love with her?”
    “I thought so at the time,” he admitted.
    “That, of course, was before you turned against marriage. She would have done better to marry you. Sir Giles said she and her duke are not getting along. I think she wrote the book when she realized her mistake, giving it the happy ending that escaped her in real life.”
    “Sir Giles is misinformed,” he said firmly. “Debora and the duke are well matched. He gives her whatever she asks for.”
    “Like Meg and Fairly, you mean?”
    “Like Meg and Fairly and most happily married couples.”
    “I am surprised you allow there is any such thing. We shall agree to disagree on what constitutes a happy marriage. Sir Giles feels as I do, that a happy marriage requires two like-minded, rational people.”
    Montaigne felt a spurt of annoyance. “Rational people don’t get married!” he said, venting his wrath.
    “I expect it is the exception when two rational people have the felicity to meet and fall in love. When that happens, surely their good sense compels them to marry. Sir Giles was saying—”
    “You have been discussing marriage with Sir Giles already, have you? One of you is a fast worker. Since Sir Giles is pushing fifty, one can hardly accuse him of undue haste. That leaves yourself, Sissie.” He gave her a scalding look, which she ignored. “Found your new hero, have you? An aging self-styled critic?”
    “We discussed marriage in the abstract, as an idea, not in specifics. It is odd, though; Anne said I might meet a potential husband here. And incidentally, Sir Giles is closer to forty than fifty. He is forty-two.”
    “Do you feel you have met your potential husband in this