‘Lady Everingham seems much surprised at it.’
‘Ah! Lady Everingham is a brilliant personage, and cannot deign to observe obvious circumstances.’
‘Do you know, Mr. Coningsby, that I always thought you were engaged to Lady Theresa?’
‘I!’
‘Indeed, we were informed more than a month ago that you were positively going to be married to her.’
‘I am not one of those who can shift their affections with such rapidity, Lady Wallinger.’
Lady Wallinger looked distressed. ‘You remember our meeting you on the stairs at —— House, Mr. Coningsby?’
‘Painfully. It is deeply graven on my brain.’
‘Edith had just been informed that you were going to be married to Lady Theresa.’
‘Not surely by him to whom she is herself going to be married?’ said Coningsby, reddening.