"With what taste do they accredit me!" he says, half aloud, with a rather pale smile and a slight curl of his short upper lip, discernible even beneath his drooping moustache. His eyes are directed toward Florence, who is standing, carrying on a lifeless flirtation at a little distance from him; there is distaste in every line of his face, and Lilian, marking it, draws a long breath, and lets the smile return to her mobile lips.
"Was Chetwoode there all the time?" asks Archibald, aghast.
"Yes: was it not horrible?" replies she, half laughing. "Poor Mr. Bellair! I had no idea I had done so much mischief."
The hours are growing older, Lady Chetwoode is growing tired. Already with the utmost craftiness has she concealed five distinct yawns, and begins to think with lingering fondness of eider-down and bedroom fires.
Florence, too, who is sitting near her, and who is ever careful not to overdo the thing, is longing for home, being always anxious to husband as far as possible her waning youth and beauty.
"Lilian, dearest, I think you must come home now," Lady Chetwoode says, tapping the girl's white arms, as she stops close to her in the interval of a dance.
"So soon, auntie!" says Lilian, with dismay.
She is dancing with a very good-looking guardsman, who early in the evening did homage to her charms, and who ever since has been growing worse and worse; by this time he is very bad indeed, and scorns to look at any one in the room except Miss Chesney, who, to confess the truth, has been coquetting with him unremittingly for the past half-hour, without noticing, or at least appearing to notice, Archibald's black looks or Sir Guy's averted ones.
At Lady Chetwoode's words, the devoted guardsman turns an imploring glance upon his lovely partner, that fills her (she is kind-hearted) with the liveliest compassion. Yes, she will make one last effort, if only to save him from mental suicide.