His musings appeared to have alarmed her. Emrys watched her dissolve into slightly frantic worrying. He honestly had trouble believing she was serious. It was like the sort of thing a playwright might devise for an actress to say in a bad satire. Her entire speech could have been replaced by one line from a narrative voice: a girl so sheltered she has lost all notion of reality.

And then she claimed that if no one married, there would be no babies. Emrys couldn't help himself: he laughed loudly at that.

"It's not quite so dire as that," he said, when his laughter subsided. "The human race existed before the invention of the social season, you know. But don't worry, I'm sure they won't cancel a thing. These ladies don't mind a little blood on their hands. And the fellow who died would most likely be a willing martyr for the cause."