Reprise by Joan Smith Page A

business, she could hardly turn the talk around to Lord Liverpool’s eyes.
    “Is it true you have written a book of sonnets and decided not to distribute them?” Miss Grenfell asked, smiling happily at her conquest.
    “Yes, it is true. Unlike some people, when I write something unworthy of me, I don’t insist on foisting it on the public. Some works are best suppressed.”
    “I don’t know how anyone can write poems, and especially such clever ones as you write. I have heard said the sonnets are even better than the others. How I would love to read them.”
    “So you shall, but you will have to let me take a copy and read them to you myself. They are not being passed around. You see how cleverly I manage to insinuate myself into your saloon, Miss Grenfell.”
    “I’m sure it is an honor, Lord Dammler. But I know ever so many people that have a copy. May I not have one?” She went on to reel off a longish list.
    After having told Prudence she had the only copy left, Dammler was discomfited at this. “Will you be home tomorrow morning, Miss Grenfell?”
    “Oh, yes! Will you come tomorrow?”
    “I’ll try to wait till tomorrow,” he told her, leaning closer to her, and looking into her brown eyes, while trying to see in the mirror across the room whether Prudence was watching. As she seemed to be paying not the slightest heed, he was obliged to turn away from Miss Grenfell and discover his old friend, Lord Malvern, in the corner.
    “Ah, Harold! There you are. How do you do? Where is Constance this evening? I hope you have not left your beautiful wife home? You know all we bachelors only come to these do’s in the hopes of having a waltz with Constance.”
    “You may be sure she is here. She is off waltzing herself to a shadow with young Fotheringham. Her latest flirt, you must know,” the fond husband said proudly.
    “Careful, now, you are making me jealous,” Dammler chided.
    “Oh, we are all jealous of her. She is up to anything. I was just telling Miss Mallow how happy we are she is coming to us at Finefields. I am delighted Constance is beginning to ask some pretty young gels to her do’s. She usually asks nothing but old dowds and dowagers, you know.”
    “She knows how to pick the proper foils for herself, but when Constance is in the room, no man looks at any other woman."
    Prudence sat silent, refusing to rise to any of his jibes. It was Malvern who spoke up again. “Mr. Elmtree, Miss Mallow’s uncle, is to come, too. You would know him, I expect?”
    “I have the privilege of his acquaintance. He is an artist, you know.”
    “So he tells me. He offered to do me while he is there.”
    “How nice. You must be careful his niece does not do you as well, Harold,” he said, smiling.
    “Eh? You don’t paint, do you, Miss Mallow?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “I was referring to word pictures. Miss Mallow has been known to give us a portrait in prose. Not so well rendered as her uncle’s likenesses, I’m afraid.”
    Still Prudence said nothing, though it became harder by the moment. “Canova is to sculpt your wife, I understand,” she said to Malvern, turning her shoulder to Dammler.
    “Lucky man,” he said behind her back.
    “Yes, he is doing her as Aphrodite, a Greek goddess, I believe.”
    “The goddess of love,” Dammler supplied. “I recently dedicated a volume of verses to Venus myself.”
    “Oh yes, your sonnets,” Malvern nodded. “Constance has a copy. Very nice.”
    “Everyone has a copy. For an undistributed work, they are amazingly widely read,” Prudence volunteered. To Venus, were they? He meant Constance, and he had said they were to her! And he had given Constance a copy, too, after telling her she had the only one.
    “Constance has a copy. I gave a few to my very particular friends,” Dammler admitted.
    “So Mr. Seville was telling me. He has a copy,” Prudence topped him, knowing how much he loathed Seville.
    He glowered. “I believe Hettie filched a few and