“What does he mean by it, my dear? The man must have some deep, insidious design in all this;—don't you think so?”
“I think to myself, sometimes,” replied she, sorrowfully. And now their eyes met, and they remained looking steadily at each other for some seconds. Whatever Lady Grace's secret thoughts, or whatever the dark piercing orbs of her companion served to intimate, true is it that she blushed till her cheek became crimson; and as she arose, and walked out upon the terrace, her neck was a-flame with the emotion.
“He never married?” said Lady Lackington.
“No!” said Lady Grace, without turning her head. And there was a silence on both sides.
Oh dear! how much of the real story of our lives passes without expression—how much of the secret mechanism of our hearts moves without a sound in the machinery!
“Poor fellow!” said Lady Lackington, at last, “his lot is just as sad as your own. I mean,” added she, “that he feels it so.”
There was no answer, and she resumed. “Not but men generally treat these things lightly enough. They have their clubs, and their Houses of Parliament, and their shooting. Are you ill, dearest?” cried she, as Lady Grace tottered feebly back and sauk into a chair.
“No,” said she, in a faint voice, “I'm only tired!” And there was an inexpressible melancholy in the tone as she spoke it.
“And I'm tired too!” said Lady Lackington, drearily. “There is a tyranny in the routine of these places quite insupportable—the hours, the discipline, the diet, and, worse than all, the dreadful people one meets with.” Though Lady Grace did not seem very attentive, this was a theme the speaker loved to improve, and so she proceeded to discuss the house and its inhabitants in all freedom. French, Russians, and Italians—all were passed in review, and very smartly criticised, till she arrived at “those atrocious O'Reillys, that my Lord will persist in threatening to present to me. Now one knows horrid people when they are very rich, or very well versed in some speculation or other—mines, or railroads, or the like—and when their advice is so much actual money in your pocket—just, for instance, as my Lord knows that Mr. Davenport Dunn—”
“Oh! he's a great ally of Mr. Twining; at least, I have heard his name a hundred times in connexion with business matters.”