The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 4 of 5)

Juliet was precipitately followed by Lord Melbury.
'It is not, then,' he cried, 'your intention to return to Mrs Ireton?'
'No, my lord, never!'
She had but just uttered these words, when, immediately facing her, she beheld Mrs Howel.
A spectre could not have made her start more affrighted, could not have appeared to her more horrible. And Lord Melbury, who earnestly, at the same moment, had pronounced, 'Tell me whither, then,—' stopping abruptly, looked confounded.
'May I ask your lordship to take me to Lady Aurora?' Mrs Howel coldly demanded.
'Aurora?—Yes;—she is there, Ma'am;—still in the gallery.'
Mrs Howel presented him her hand, palpably to force him with her; and stalked past Juliet, without any other demonstration of perceiving her than what was unavoidably manifested by an heightened air of haughty disdain.
Lord Melbury, distressed, would still have hung back; but Mrs Howel, taking his arm, proceeded, as if without observing his repugnance.