"Really," returned Miss Vernon, "I only hesitate, because it seemed so impertinent, what I am about to tell you."
"Never mind—go on—dispense with preface."
"Lord Effingham said, or rather by what he said, seemed to think, it was to avoid him, you feigned illness!"
"He does," exclaimed Lady Desmond, with interest; then an instant after, with haughty indifference, she continued—"He gives me credit for more ingenuity, than I possess! yet—" and she leant back, resting one cheek on her hand, the expression of disdain, she had called up, fading into a look of pensive thought, almost sad. "How strange he is—how impenetrable; but these things are so much altered by repetition."
Lady Desmond thought long and gravely, at length her brow cleared—a smile parted her lips—
"Perhaps I have disentangled this mystery," she said; "time will tell, at all events, bella mia, I know the world—Lord Effingham's world—better than you do. I shall not notice 'the impertinence,' as you deem it."
"Indeed you do know best, Georgy dear, at least, in general, for you have experience, which I have not; but as to Lord Effingham, I have an instinct, worth whole a life-time of experience, that he is false and selfish—he admires you, indeed he said he was fond of you; but, oh, do not regard him with anything except the—"
"Ah, Lord Effingham appears to have been making quite a confidante of you, Kate! a rare compliment let me tell you," interrupted Lady Desmond, laughingly, "of course he begged of you not to repeat his confidence?"
"Yes, and I told I would."
"Well, dearest, it is a strange intimacy that has sprung up between you, and this very Giaour-like peer," returned Lady Desmond, in her sweetest manner, and quite regardless of Kate's warning. "I know not where it—"