On the evening of the day that Egremont had met Sybil in the
Abbey of Westminster, and subsequently parted from her under
circumstances so distressing, the Countess of Marney held a
great assembly at the family mansion in St James" Square, which Lord Marney had intended to have let to a new club, and himself and his family to have taken refuge for a short season at an hotel, but he drove so hard a bargain that before the lease was signed, the new club, which mainly consisted of an ingenious individual who had created himself secretary, had vanished. Then it was agreed that the family mansion should be inhabited for the season by the family; and to-night Arabella was receiving all that great world of which she herself was a distinguished ornament.
"We come to you as early as possible my dear Arabella," said
Lady Deloraine to her daughter-in-law.
"You are always so good! Have you seen Charles? I was in
hopes he would have come," Lady Marney added in a somewhat
mournful tone.
"He is at the House: otherwise I am sure he would have been
here," said Lady Deloraine, glad that she had so good a reason
for an absence, which under any circumstances she well knew
would have occurred.
"I fear you will be sadly in want of beaus this evening, my
love. We dined at the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine's, and all our
cavaliers vanished. They talk of an early division."
"I really wish all these divisions were over," said Lady
Marney. "They are very anti-social. Ah! here is Lady de
Mowbray."
Alfred Mountchesney hovered round Lady Joan Fitz-Warene, who
was gratified by the devotion of the Cupid of May Fair. He
uttered inconceivable nothings, and she replied to him in
incomprehensible somethings. Her learned profundity and his
vapid lightness effectively contrasted. Occasionally he
caught her eye and conveyed to her the anguish of his soul in
a glance of self-complacent softness.
Lady St Julians leaning on the arm of the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine stopped to speak to Lady Joan. Lady St Julians was determined that the heiress of Mowbray should marry one of her sons. She watched therefore with a restless eye all those who attempted to monopolize Lady Joan's attention, and contrived perpetually to interfere with their manoeuvres. In the midst of a delightful conversation that seemed to approach a crisis, Lady St Julians was sure to advance, and interfere with some affectionate appeal to Lady Joan, whom she called her "dear child" and "sweetest love," while she did not deign even to notice the unhappy cavalier whom she had thus as it were unhorsed.
"My sweet child!" said Lady St Julians to Lady Joan, "you have
no idea how unhappy Frederick is this evening, but he cannot
leave the House, and I fear it will be a late affair."
Lady Joan looked as if the absence or presence of Frederick
was to her a matter of great indifference, and then she added, "I do not think the division so important as is generally imagined. A defeat upon a question of colonial government does not appear to me of sufficient weight to dissolve a cabinet."
"Any defeat will do that now," said Lady St Julians, "but to
tell you the truth I am not very sanguine. Lady Deloraine
says they will be beat: she says the radicals will desert
them; but I am not so sure. Why should the radicals desert
them? And what have we done for the radicals? Had we indeed
foreseen this Jamaica business, and asked some of them to
dinner, or given a ball or two to their wives and daughters! I
am sure if I had had the least idea that we had so good a
chance of coming in, I should not have cared myself to have
done something; even to have invited their women."
"But you are such a capital partisan, Lady St Julians," said
the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, who with the viceroyalty of
Ireland dexterously dangled before his eyes for the last two
years, had become a thorough conservative and had almost as
much confidence in Sir Robert as in Lord Stanley.