Una smiled. She was a little pale and was trembling slightly.
“No; I am too surprised and astonished at present. How beautiful it is, and how lovely they are.”
“The women?” said Lady Bell, with a laugh, and a glance at the unconscious face beside her, which she knew outshone all others there. “You think so! Well, there are some pretty women here. There is Lady Clarence—the one in light blue and swansdown—and Mrs. Cantrip—she was the beauty last season. You don’t understand?”
“Last season!” said Una. “Who is the beauty this?”
Lady Bell laughed and flushed a little.
“Never mind, child,” she said. “One who doesn’t care a farthing about it, at any rate. But look, do you see that tall lady there, dancing with the short man with whiskers? She is the Countess of Pierrepoint, and he is the Duke of Garnum——”
“A duke?” said Una, surprised.
“You expected to see a man seven feet high in his ducal robes?” she said. “See those two men who have just come in? The dark one is Sir Arkroyd Hetley, the other, the boy—the baby they call him—is a marquis, the Marquis of Dalrymple. They are always together. They are coming to shake hands with me.”
Una drew further into the shade as the two men, after hunting about the room, came up to the recess, and listened as they paid their compliments and seemed anxious to remain, but Lady Bell sent them off quite plainly and distinctly, and sat looking toward the door, and presently she ceased talking, and her bright, beautiful face grew quiet and almost sad, certainly wistful, and at last she sighed and murmured:
“No, he will not come.”