Lady Lancaster was surprised and angry and frightened all in one when she heard that Leonora West had refused Lieutenant De Vere. She made him own the truth when he came to make his hasty adieus, and she roundly abused the "pert minx," as she called her, for her "impertinence and presumption."
"Whom does she think she will get? Does she think she will capture an earl or a duke?" she sneered, and De Vere answered, coldly:
"I do not believe that she has any matrimonial designs on any one, Lady Lancaster. She returns to America in a very few days."
Lady Lancaster was so surprised that she gave vent to her relief in a hasty exclamation:
"Thank Heaven! And I devoutly wish that she had remained there."
"There are more persons than one who will agree with your ladyship there," he said, betrayed into a laugh at her naïveté.
"Whom?" she exclaimed, with a start.
"Myself for one," he answered. "I am not at liberty to implicate any one else."
She gave him a savage glance.