"With all my heart; if you will only begin the attack I will follow it up."
"Allons donc," she replied, taking his arm and going towards the Glenmores.
The usual nothings of common-place talk, the unmeaning greetings, and the self-same observations on singers and dancers which have been made a hundred times before, opened the meditated campaign. "My dear Lord Glenmore," said Lady Tenderden, "I have long wished to consult you about a changement de décoration" (and she looked at Mr. Leslie Winyard) "which I purpose making in my house in town, and I have some thoughts of copying in part the Rotunda-room which is here, only there are some objections to be made to it, which I wish to avoid if possible, and I am desirous that you should assist me with your perfection of taste; have the kindness for a moment to come with me—but I could not think of giving Lady Glenmore that trouble. There, Mr. Winyard, while I run away with my lord, do you make the preux chevalier, and defend Lady Glenmore from all dangers."
So saying, she passed her arm through Lord Glenmore's and led him away. Lady Glenmore looked for a moment as if she intended to follow, and even half rose from her chair for that purpose; but the lessons Lady Tenderden had given her about not seeming to pursue her husband recurred to her, and she sat down again, blushing and breathless, and evidently discomposed. Mr. Leslie Winyard enjoyed the scene: "shall I call Lord Glenmore back again?" he asked, after fixing his eyes upon her maliciously, "or will you allow me to conduct you to him?" and he smiled, evidently in ridicule at her awkwardness. But she was not a fool, though ignorant of the ways of the world; and in a few minutes she recovered herself, and spoke uncommonly well on common-place topics, to the astonishment of her hearer: she even passed upon the set to which he belonged some very stinging remarks, the more so from their being uttered as if unconscious that they were so, or that he was one of the persons to whom they applied.
"Do you know," said he, gazing at her with looks of admiration, "do you know you are a very extraordinary personage? Suffer me to say that this is all very well in joke, but if you are serious in your opinions, we must undergo a great revolution, or we shall not be at all able to live with you. I do not pretend," he said, "to decide who is in the right or who is in the wrong, but I am very certain of one thing, a change must take place somewhere, if your ideas of things in general are correct." Lady Glenmore replied, "that she was very certain her ideas would not change;" to which he rejoined, "nous verrons."
At that moment a move in the room announced that every one was going to supper, and the doors were thrown open into an adjoining apartment, towards which there was a general rush. Lady Glenmore again cast her eye anxiously around, but in vain—her husband was not to be seen.
"Allow me," said two or three young men, offering their arm to her, "to hand you to supper," and in the confusion she took that of Mr. Leslie Winyard. "But," he observed, "you seem so uneasy, that if you will allow me, I will merely see you agreeably placed, and go in quest of this envied Lord Glenmore."
"You are very good," she replied, "but I cannot think of giving you that trouble."
"Oh dear, I beg you will not mention it; and the mission is so new a one, that I am particularly proud to be employed in executing it."
"How, new? Is there any thing extraordinary in wishing to know whether one's husband chooses one should go home, or whether he stays supper or not?"