As soon as Lord Albert was alone, and could recall his scattered senses, he reviewed every look and every gesture of Lady Adeline; and notwithstanding all that passed at the drawing-room and subsequently, notwithstanding the marked coldness and disapprobation which her manner had of late implied, he yet thought that her real feelings were not those, at least, of indifference towards him; and he resolved to try the issue of calling in South Audley-street that evening, as he had proposed to her.

For this purpose, he got away early from a ceremonious dinner which he was obliged to attend, and which appeared to him to last longer than any dinner had ever done before: and with his heart and head full of Adeline, and of Adeline alone, he found himself once more in her presence. Lady Delamere and her daughters, and one or two others, were sitting around Lady Dunmelraise's couch, amusing her with accounts of the drawing-room; but Lady Adeline was at the piano-forte, and Mr. Foley sitting by her, with a certain indescribable air of being established in his place by right.

At one glance of his eye, Lord Albert took in the whole room on entering, together with the relative position of its occupants; and his feelings underwent a sudden and painful revulsion. He advanced, however, towards Lady Dunmelraise, who extended her hand to him, but in a way that he could not mistake; and her coldness struck an additional chill to his heart. From Lady Delamere and her daughters he met no kindlier greeting; and he determined at once to try if Adeline's heart was equally shut against him. For this purpose he moved towards her; and although she could not see him, her back being turned to that part of the room from whence he came, yet she heard his approaching footstep, and trembled in every nerve.

Mr. Foley, who had followed Lady Hamlet Vernon's advice respecting his own conduct, and who lost no opportunity in acting in conformity to it, was now determined that he would not resign his seat or quit his station near Lady Adeline. The latter, on her part, had been too much agitated by her own feelings to see things in their true light; and was glad of any person to talk to, in order to conceal her emotion. But no artificial means were sufficiently powerful to still the beatings of her heart; and when Lord Albert inquired after her health, saying, he hoped she had not suffered from the morning's fatigue, she started at the sound of his voice, although she expected to hear it, and made some hurried reply, which he construed into a disdain of his inquiries.

Lord Albert, wretched and astonished, stood mute; questioning within himself if this could really be the same Adeline whom he had a few hours ago seen with such a different expression in her whole countenance and demeanour, as to make him doubt the evidence of his senses. He would at once have broken through the mystery, could he have obtained her ear for a moment; but the presence of Mr. Foley, who pertinaciously, and, as it appeared to Lord Albert, in defiance of him, kept his place, prevented all explanation. And then again returned those false conclusions which arose from jealous doubt; and he conceived that it would be unworthy of himself even to seek an explanation from one whose evident preference of another appeared to him so very decided.

In this dark spirit of jealous indignation, he turned away, and sank into gloomy silence. Could he have known what was passing in Lady Adeline's breast, he would have acknowledged the justice of her feelings; he would have seen that all which seemed coldness and indifference was only the result of a proper sense of what she owed herself; and that under that assumed demeanour lay hid the truest, warmest love. Strange as it may appear on a slight review of the matter (although it is the common infirmity of human nature never to see its own defects), he was not aware of the effect which his constant intercourse with Lady Hamlet Vernon produced on the minds of all those who witnessed his intimacy with her; and, perhaps, as matters now stood, even if he had been at one time inclined to own himself in the wrong, the still greater dereliction from all truth and delicacy, which he thought he discovered both in Lady Adeline and Lady Dunmelraise, respecting their behaviour to him, completely exonerated him in his opinion, and he lost all sense of the evil of his own conduct in blaming theirs.

Little did Lord Albert dream (indeed, in the excitement of greater things, he had totally forgotten it) that the sprig of myrtle which Lady Adeline had given him that morning, and which had been apparently the medium of so much mutual tenderness, had been seen by her in Lady Hamlet Vernon's hand, when their carriages were entangled in coming from the drawing-room. It was this circumstance, combined with Lord Albert's being again in assiduous attendance on one whom she was now compelled to consider in the light of a rival, that had made Lady Adeline draw up the glass at the moment Lord Albert was about to speak to her, in order to escape witnessing so painful a truth. As she threw herself back in the carriage, and reflected on the unworthiness of his conduct, she became the victim of the most agonizing feelings; for what is so painful as the conviction of unworthiness in the object of our love? and it was this conviction which had effected the alteration in her manner towards him, which he could not but observe from the first moment of his entering the room.

While she was actuated by these sentiments, Lord Albert, on his part, writhed under the idea that Mr. Foley was his favoured rival, and that he was only allowed to witness his triumph, in order that he might be provoked to become the party who should break off the engagement existing between him and Lady Adeline. But this he inwardly determined should never be the case. He endeavoured, therefore, at the present moment, to devour his chagrin, and force himself to converse on indifferent topics; addressing himself, however, to Lady Dunmelraise, rather than to Lady Adeline. Among others, he made allusion to the fÊte which was to take place at Avington Park the day after the following, and expressed his regret that he had been unable to procure the tickets which he had hoped to have presented to herself and Lady Adeline; "a circumstance," he added, "which I consider very unfair, since I was one of the original subscribers to this fÊte; but the names of the parties to be inserted have been all chosen by ballot, and my single voice alone did not prevail in obtaining the insertion of those whom I wished to be on the list."

This was really the fact, however extraordinary it may appear. Lord Albert, with the other persons who formed the committee appointed to give and arrange this fÊte, had paid five hundred guineas each towards defraying the expense, but not one of them had the power of inviting any individual apart from the consent of the whole body; and as Lady Dunmelraise and her daughter were not of that circle which Lady Tilney and her coterie considered to be ton, Lord Albert's wishes on this point, which were perfectly sincere, had been wholly unattended to. Under the circumstances, however, in which he stood in the opinion of all those who now heard him, the exclusiveness of this measure could not be comprehended or believed, and, in short, passed for a mere deception.

His excuse, consequently, was received with great coldness by Lady Dunmelraise, who only replied, "That, as to herself, her going was quite out of the question; and as to her daughter," she added with emphasis, "I dare say Adeline has no wish to be there." Here the subject dropped; and Lord Albert, torn by a thousand contradictory feelings, could no longer continue to play so painful a part as that which he now saw devolved upon him. In this state of mind he quitted Lady Dunmelraise's house, having bade her a cold adieu. Little did he imagine it was for the last time.

If Lord Albert had exercised the power of sober reason, if the sorrow he felt had been free from all reproach of conscience, he would not have feared to look into his own breast, and would have sought counsel from that best adviser, his own mind, in the quiet of his chamber; "for a man's mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen that sit upon a high tower." But miserably he had suffered many entanglements to embarrass his steps, and direct them from the straight-forward path. The natural consequence of this was, that his mind had become a chaos, in which he distinguished nothing clearly; and in the bitterest moments of suffering, instead of coolly resorting to his understanding, as he once would have done, he now always sought to elude reflection by plunging into crowds. Whenever we dread to be left alone with our own thoughts, we are in peril. This melancholy change in Lord Albert's character was one which the alteration in his mode of life, and his associates, had in a short period of time effected.

Instead, therefore, of returning home when he left South Audley street, Lord Albert drove to Lady Glenmore's, who was that night to receive the coterie of their peculiar circle for the first time at her own house. There had been no little arrangement on Lady Tilney's part, as well as on Lady Tenderden's, to give to Lady Glenmore's soirÉe its full effect in the annals of ton, by stamping it with that exclusive mark of self-arrogated distinction, of which they considered themselves to be the sum and seal.

No pains had been spared by these ladies, therefore, to render this assemblage of persons select, according to their acceptation of the meaning of the word, and, pour trancher le mot, as they said, to exclude every one not on their own private lists, with the limited exception of those diplomates and official persons whom Lord Glenmore's ministerial situation obliged them to permit Lady Glenmore to invite.

At Glenmore House there was of course assembled, on the present evening, the Tilneys, Leinsengens, Tenderdens, Boileaus, Gascoignes, De Cheres, and the rest of the Élite who formed the sociÉtÉ choisie of Lady Tilney; and as the latter looked around the apartments, and only saw there those whom in fact she had bidden, she was gratified with this fresh accession of arbitrary power, and considered it no small triumph thus to have set the seal of her supremacy over the yielding Lady Glenmore, who might, under other circumstances, if she had not been an ally, have proved a formidable enemy. As it was, Lady Tilney expressed the sense of her satisfaction by a thousand cajoleries, which one woman knows so well to practise upon another when it suits her purpose. She praised Lady Glenmore's dress (that touchstone of female friendship), although she could not help saying apart to Lady Tenderden, that it was a pity Lady Glenmore still persisted in her baroque modes, which in fact were no modes at all, but contrivances of her own. To herself, Lady Tilney however next observed, that Lady Glenmore's choice of society was excellent, and that the manner in which she had arranged her rooms was managed with infinite taste.

These approving, encouraging speeches, from one so versed in the knowledge of the world, and so much looked up to as the arbiter of the elegancies of life, together with all the other incense of flattery which was lavished upon Lady Glenmore on every side, could not fail of taking some effect on her mind. Young, fair, unformed in character, brought up by fond and indulgent parents, who thought she never could err, and who had miserably neglected to implant those religious principles in her breast which alone give stability to character, which impart strength by making us aware of our own weakness, Lady Glenmore was launched on a scene where dangers surrounded her in every shape, and which she was wholly unprepared either to foresee or to sustain. Gentle, amiable,—as yet pure, and unsuspicious of evil, from being herself free from it,—she was a fitting subject to be moulded into any shape by any evil-designing person that knew gradually to undermine her innocence without alarming her fears. Lady Glenmore's situation in the world, therefore, with a husband incessantly employed in public duties, consequently often absent, while she was thrown in the midst of a peculiar society, which became, from various circumstances, her only sphere of action, was one of infinite temptation and peril.

At first, as was seen, she mourned over the deprivation of her husband's presence,—a husband whom she loved with child-like tenderness; but time, ton, and necessity, soon softened down this infantine regret, and merely at first as a solace for the pain she endured in being absent from him, she entered on the routine of dissipated pleasure which presented itself to her on all sides. No wonder, then, that those worldly pursuits, which were at first resorted to as palliatives for pain, became gradually habitual and necessary to her; and it is the fatal but inevitable consequence of such a habit of life, to unfit the capacity (even the best and most vigorous capacity) for any higher or nobler aim.

In the thoughtless vivacity of her age, alive to the zest of gaiety and pleasure, her better qualities lay dormant; and in this Circean circle her beauty and her youth were certain passports to general admiration, independently of all the adventitious circumstances by which she was environed. On the present occasion, when for the first time she opened her house, she appeared the presiding spirit that gave life, animation, and novelty even to the blasÉ and hackneyed beings around her. Had Lady Glenmore used, without abusing, the many advantages of her brilliant station, she would not have been to blame, whatever may be said by gloomy ascetics; nor would they have had power to lead her into danger, had she possessed the stay and guide which a husband's constant presence in society always affords.

This, however, was not her case; and the very nature of her ingenuous and guileless disposition became, in her present circumstances, an additional source of danger, since it rendered her the easy prey of the experienced and practised in deception, by too many of whom she was surrounded, and who, envious of that purity they affected to despise, were restless agents in endeavouring to reduce it to their own corrupt level. It was from some such motive as this, rather than from any impulse of love or passion, that Mr. Leslie Winyard first paid Lady Glenmore attention. He was clever, and knew well how to be prodigal of assiduities to the one object of his pursuit, in contradistinction to the contempt in which he apparently held all others. This flatters the vanity of the individual to whom they are addressed, and proves a ready passport to a woman's smiles, particularly when experiencing that perfect dÉlaissement which is most felt in a crowd, where "there is none to bless us, none whom we can bless."

Under these circumstances Lady Glenmore first listened to Mr. Leslie Winyard; and that advantage once gained, he had art enough to avail himself of it as a step towards intimacy. In a very short space of time, he so far succeeded as to raise at least a bruit sourd of his being l'objet prÉfÉrÉ; an idea which at this period, could any real friend of Lady Glenmore's have suggested to her, she would have started from with indignation; but as it was, she continued laughing and talking on the present occasion with Mr. Leslie Winyard. Had she overheard the observations made upon her by various persons, more particularly those of Lady De Chere and Lord Boileau, she might have learned a lesson which she was destined to buy at a higher price.

"Well, for a debutante," said Lord Boileau, "I think la petite Georgina has made considerable progress in her career. And how does Glenmore take it?"

"Oh!" replied Lady De Chere, "as every one does what they cannot help, I suppose. Besides, doubtless, he has other things to think of, and must feel glad to have escaped her childish fondness: it must have been exceedingly tiresome; and, after all, the sooner a matrimonial understanding is settled upon a right and proper footing, the better for both parties."

"Very true, Lady De Chere; and nobody settles those matters so well as yourself; you are a model for all married ladies; so much retenu, so much biensÉance, and such a lady-like way of doing exactly what you choose, and allowing De Chere to do the same. It is the only way for married persons to be comfortable, or comme il faut."

"I am glad you think so, for that has long ago been Lady Boileau's opinion," replied Lady De Chere, with one of her most contumelious smiles, and left Lord Boileau to the satisfaction of his reflections on domestic happiness.

"Pardon me," said Lord Baskerville, gently pulling him aside, and conducting the Comtesse Leinsengen to the other apartment, "but en qualitÉ de preux, hem! I must be permitted to say, Place aux dames—a-hem!"

"Oh! my reveries," rejoined Lord Boileau, "were on very every-day topics; they can be resumed at any time; and I am happy in the honour of—"

"Getting out of de way," quickly interrupted the Comtesse, who had the happy knack of cutting all long speeches short, "milles graces:" and she glided past him with a sliding bow, adding aside to Lord Baskerville, "I would always make my best thanks to him for dat; he is quite a dullification. Mais voilÀ du nouveau," she went on to say, in the same breath, looking towards Lady Glenmore and Mr. Leslie Winyard, who were still conversing; "dat is always de way with your English virtuosos; dey go grand train when dey do go. You are an odd people altogether; always en caricatura. Et le mari farouche apprivoisÉ! quite used to it already! Well, he is more sensible dan I took him for; vogue la galÈre." And by this time she had approached close to Lady Glenmore with her sliding step.—"I wished to make you my courtesy, and pay you my compliments on the brilliancy of your soirÉe; and I am happy to see you did not suffer more from your indisposition at the drawing-room. Indeed, I am sure you could not, for I never saw you looking more triomphante than to-night. That heat was enough to kill one; but you had only a vapeur; and I assure you it was quite becoming: was it not, Lord Baskerville?"

"Oh, done in excellent style, as all that Lady Glenmore does must be—a-hem! quite in good taste; no distortions or hysterics or vulgar violences; all suavity and gentleness—a-hem! never saw so beautiful a specimen of feint in my life—hem!"

At that moment Lord D'Esterre came up to make his bow to Lady Glenmore, and the Comtesse Leinsengen walked abruptly away, saying, "De very sight of dat man gives me what you call de blue and de green devils."

But Lady Hamlet Vernon was quite of a different opinion; she had long been a fixture in the door-way, looking anxiously for his arrival. It was late when he came, and she sought to attract his attention, and engage him in conversation. Solicitous as she was to learn the cause of his having left her in such an unaccountable manner in Cleveland-row, she did not immediately enter upon that subject, but said something expressive of a general interest in his welfare, and of concern at seeing him look unwell. He eluded her inquiries, and professed being in perfect health; but she was evidently aware that his mind had undergone some sudden change since she had seen him at the drawing-room, for he no longer spoke in the abstracted manner he had done when there, but joined with an apparent animation and interest in a conversation which she dexterously led to topics that she knew to be most in accordance with his tastes and habits, and particularly so when he was depressed and under the influence of blighted feelings; at which times he never failed to seek refuge in dreams of ambition and power.

Though Lord Albert D'Esterre had never yet arrived at that degree of intimacy with Lady Hamlet Vernon which might have induced him to open his whole heart to her, on its dearest interests, yet there always seemed to him to be a tacit and delicate understanding of his sentiments, which he felt was soothing, and believed was sincere; while, on her part, there was a consummate art in appearing to compassionate his disappointment, while, at the same time, she never failed in administering some baneful suspicion, or insinuating some deteriorating observation on the character and conduct of Lady Adeline and her mother, in respect to their behaviour towards himself.

Had Lady Hamlet Vernon, by any incautious or violent language, betrayed her own malignant feelings, his eyes would have been at once unsealed; but all she said was so well adapted to effect what she intended, to throw his mind into a sea of doubts, and yet leave no suspicion of her intending to do so, that he yielded, by degrees, an unwilling belief to this sapping, undermining influence, so totally destructive of his peace.

While listening to discourse of this kind, their conversation was interrupted by Lord Raynham's addressing Lady Hamlet Vernon as he passed her, putting some common-place question (to which, however, he did not wait to hear an answer) about the ensuing breakfast, and then he walked on, talking to himself as usual.

Lady Hamlet Vernon turned quickly to Lord Albert, saying, "Of course you must be there!"

He replied vaguely, apparently not knowing what he was saying; and it was evident to Lady Hamlet Vernon, that, for some reason or other, the mention of the breakfast raised in his mind a perplexity of thoughts, for he relapsed into an abstracted mood, and became perfectly silent. She was too wary to make any direct observation upon this, and too much accustomed to the fluctuation of his spirits not to know that they must be suffered to ebb and flow without animadversion on her part, if she desired to maintain her influence over him; but she determined secretly to trace the cause of this sudden change to its source, and felt sure that there was something connected with the breakfast of higher interest to him than itself. She endeavoured to regain his attention by turning her conversation into other channels; but in vain: the spell was on him, and soon afterwards he glided from her side and left the assembly.

Lady Glenmore's party was prolonged to a late hour, and when the people began to move, a considerable time elapsed before they could all depart. To dissipate the ennui of these last moments, Lady Glenmore went to her piano-forte, and, in that excitement of spirit which the incense of flattery and the consciousness of worldly success inspires, she sang in her very best manner and in her most brilliant style, and was herself so absorbed in the sweet sounds she made, that she perceived not that the last of her visitors was gone, till, on looking up, she beheld no one save Mr. Leslie Winyard leaning over her chair. Abashed and somewhat confused, she scarce knew why, Lady Glenmore was about to rise, when Mr. Winyard entreated her just to finish the romance. "It is only two stanzas more," he said, in his most entreating and persuasive tone. Fluttered, and not wishing to show she was so, she thought it better to comply, and endeavour to recover herself while singing. In this she succeeded to a certain degree; and having sang the two stanzas he pleaded for, she arose with an intention of immediately retiring, when Mr. Leslie Winyard, who had always l'apropos du moment at command, contrived again to arrest her departure, by starting some question which she could not avoid answering, and then proceeding to further converse; while Lady Glenmore, on her part, caught by the glitter of his wit, was amused, and laughed in gaiety of spirit.

This scene had continued fully half an hour after every body had left the room, when Lord Boileau, who had been one of the last to go away, made his reappearance suddenly in the apartment where they were sitting.

"I beg you a thousand million of pardons, Lady Glenmore; I am sadly afraid I—I have intruded. I am vastly unfortunate; I must seem exceedingly impolite; quite accidental, I assure you. The truth is, my carriage did not arrive, and rather than wait any longer in the room below, I ventured to come up stairs again. You will, I trust, therefore, pardon my reappearance. But, Winyard, if your carriage is waiting, as I believe it has been for some time, will you allow it to set me down, and I will send it back immediately?"

"Oh yes!" cried Leslie Winyard, "with the greatest pleasure; by all means."—And Lord Boileau turned to go away as he spoke. Lady Glenmore happily, at the moment, felt the awkwardness of her situation, and had sufficient presence of mind to say, "Stop, Lord Boileau, I beg. Mr. Leslie Winyard, I must make my adieus, and wish you good night. I am afraid you will find it dull waiting alone till Lord Boileau's carriage returns." She said this with a determination of manner which sufficiently proved to Mr. Leslie Winyard that he ought to depart, and not press matters further at that time. He bowed, therefore, and whispering something in her ear with an appearance of familiarity, reluctantly took his leave.

As he joined Lord Boileau on the staircase, the latter said to him, in a low tone, "You will never forgive me, Winyard, I fear, for this interruption; but how very cleverly the Glenmore turned it off! I give her great credit for her address."

Leslie Winyard made no answer, but smiled complacently, and in a manner that left little doubt of the innuendo which he wished his silence to convey; while he inwardly triumphed in the assurance, that he had in Lord Boileau a willing witness and ready herald of all he could wish to be believed.