"She seems to be very friendly. What made her come?"
"She wrote some time ago to say she would call."
"But why?"
"I cannot tell you. I don't know. Don't ask me, aunt, about things that are passed. You cannot do it without wounding me."
"I don't want to wound you, Emily, but I really think that that is nonsense. She is a very nice woman;—though I don't think she ought to have said that Mr. Roby is dull. Did Mr. Wharton know that she was coming?"
"He knew that she said she would come," replied Emily very sternly, so that Mrs. Roby found herself compelled to pass on to some other subject. Mrs. Roby had heard the wish expressed that something "once more might be bright," and when she got home told her husband that she was sure that Emily Lopez was going to marry Arthur Fletcher. "And why the d–––– shouldn't she?" said Dick. "And that poor man destroying himself not much more than twelve months ago! I couldn't do it," said Mrs. Roby. "I don't mean to give you the chance," said Dick.
The Duchess when she went away suffered under a sense of failure. She had intended to bring about some crisis of female tenderness in which she might have rushed into future hopes and joyous anticipations, and with the freedom which will come from ebullitions of feeling, have told the widow that the peculiar circumstances of her position would not only justify her in marrying this other man but absolutely called upon her to do it. Unfortunately she had failed in her attempt to bring the interview to a condition in which this would have been possible, and while she was still making the attempt that odious aunt had come in. "I have been on my mission," she said to Mrs. Finn afterwards.
"Have you done any good?"
"I don't think I've done any harm. Women, you know, are so very different! There are some who would delight to have an opportunity of opening their hearts to a Duchess, and who might almost be talked into anything in an ecstasy."
"Hardly women of the best sort, Lady Glen."