"I don't see why I am to wait."
"She is very young,—and so are you, indeed. There is plenty of time."
"There is somebody else I suppose."
"I told you," said Lady Cantrip, in her softest voice, "that there has been a dream across her path."
"It's that Tregear!"
"I am not prepared to mention names," said Lady Cantrip, astonished that he should know so much. "But indeed you must wait."
"I don't see it, Lady Cantrip."
"What can I say more? If you think that such a girl as Lady Mary Palliser, the daughter of the Duke of Omnium, possessed of fortune, beauty, and every good gift, is to come like a bird to your call, you will find yourself mistaken. All that her friends can do for you will be done. The rest must remain with yourself." During that evening Lord Popplecourt endeavoured to make himself pleasant to one of the FitzHoward young ladies, and on the next morning he took his leave of Custins.
"I will never interfere again in reference to anybody else's child as long as I live," Lady Cantrip said to her husband that night.
Lady Mary was very much tempted to open her heart to Miss Boncassen. It would be delightful to her to have a friend; but were she to engage Miss Boncassen's sympathies on her behalf, she must of course sympathise with Miss Boncassen in return. And what if, after all, Silverbridge were not devoted to the American beauty! What if it should turn out that he was going to marry Lady Mabel Grex! "I wish you would call me Isabel," her friend said to her. "It is so odd,—since I have left New York I have never heard my name from any lips except father's and mother's."