"Then you must go by moonlight, and I'll go with you. Only isn't it rather late in the year for that?"
"I should think it is,—for you, Mr. Palliser."
Then the Duke spoke to her again, and she found that she got on very well during dinner. But she could not but feel angry with herself in that she had any fear on the subject;—and yet she could not divest herself of that fear. She acknowledged to herself that she was conscious of a certain inferiority to Lady Glencora and to Mr. Jeffrey Palliser, which almost made her unhappy. As regarded the Duke on the other side of her, she had no such feeling. He was old enough to be her father, and was a Cabinet Minister; therefore he was entitled to her reverence. But how was it that she could not help accepting the other people round her as being indeed superior to herself? Was she really learning to believe that she could grow upwards by their sunlight?
"Jeffrey is a pleasant fellow, is he not?" said Lady Glencora to her as they passed back through the billiard-room to the drawing-room.
"Very pleasant;—a little sarcastic, perhaps."
"I should think you would soon find yourself able to get the better of that if he tries it upon you," said Lady Glencora; and then the ladies were all in the drawing-room together.
"It is quite deliciously warm, coming from one room to another," said the Duchess, putting her emphasis on the "one" and the "other."
"Then we had better keep continually moving," said a certain Mrs. Conway Sparkes, a literary lady, who had been very handsome, who was still very clever, who was not perhaps very good-natured, and of whom the Duchess of St. Bungay was rather afraid.
"I hope we may be warm here too," said Lady Glencora.
"But not deliciously warm," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes.