"To the Palais Royal." Dobbin uttered an involuntary sound of dissent. "Why not? Julie Allingham wants us to join her party—says everybody goes there nowadays, and it's desperately rowdy and loads of fun—said to ask for her box and make ourselves at home if we got there before she did."
Mrs. Allingham was not one of Daubeney's favorites. A persevering body, with a genius for trading in last season's husband for the latest model, gifted likewise with incurable impudence and poverty of tact, both of which she was clever enough to veneer with vivacity and exploit as whimsical idiosyncrasies, she failed to measure up to his notion of the type of woman with whom Lucinda ought to be seen. He had been civil, no more, when she had danced into the box during the first entr'acte to make a public fuss over her darling Cindy, and then—engaged in small-talk by Julie's satellites, two sleek but otherwise featureless bloods—had failed to hear her invitation; and Julie had carefully forgotten to remind him of it on taking her leave.
So Daubeney wasn't pleased as he helped Lucinda with her wraps; and she read disgruntlement in his silence and constraint.
"You don't want to go, Dobbin? With me? Why?"
"With you, anywhere. But...." He mustered an unconvincing grin. "Oh, it's all right, of course. But Julie Allingham—you know—really!"
Lucinda's mouth tightened, for an instant her eyes held a sullen light. "How tiresome! You sound just like Bel. How often have I heard him use almost the same words: 'Julie Allingham—you know—really!'"
"Sorry," Dobbin said stiffly.
"What's the matter with Julie Allingham?" Lucinda demanded in a pet. "She's amusing, I like her."
"Then there's nothing more to be said."
"Oh, you're all alike, you, Bel, and all the rest of you!"