"What can the connection between these women mean?" he thought, every moment more perplexed.
"Lady Dora is, I know, a girl of independent mind: has she known this girl before her fall, and is she trying to reclaim her? If so, why walk in public with her? Or, has she been sitting to this Tremenhere for a portrait, and been brought in contact with this girl, and, charmed by her manner, overlooked her position? But--oh no, no!--Lady Dora would never act thus." It never struck him for an instant, the truth--Minnie's marriage; the "Miss Dalzell," and confusion of Lady Dora, completely refuted this idea.
"Lady Dora," he answered, smiling more composedly, now resolved to leave thought to absence, and enjoy the present pleasure of this unforeseen good-luck, "is totally ignorant of my purposed visit here, which was designed for Mr. Tremenhere on business."
Minnie, too, was gradually becoming more composed, now his visit had so natural a motive; she glided to an ottoman, and, pointing to a chair, apologised for her previous rudeness in omitting to offer one, and blaming her astonishment as cause of the remissness. Minnie was guiltless of wrong any way; so, as a friend of both her cousin and Miles, she conversed freely with her guest, whose admiration every moment became more decided, and, in proportion, a species of mixed jealousy and dislike towards Tremenhere, both for possessing such a treasure, and the base means by which he had gained it--seduction. For, with all his love of the fair sex, this was a crime in his eyes he would have scorned. Poor Minnie forgot, in her own innocence, all about her equivocal position, and he of course did not allude to it. He spoke of Tremenhere, and she replied unreservedly as of her husband; but without naming him as such. Lord Randolph did her justice in one respect; he saw she was too simple in mind, and, strange contradiction! too pure in thought, to be easily made to comprehend any thing like ordinary flirtation. He, as a man of the world, though not a genius, at once perceived that it would only be by gaining her affections she might be won. He deemed it almost an act of justice to wrong the wronger; he would have gloried in it! Lord Randolph was one of the many: he possessed the genuine code of worldly morality--not a very safe bark to sail to the end of life in. Much he said to her which she could not comprehend; but he was Miles's friend, so she accepted his words as meant in mere friendship. He could make himself agreeable when he pleased; and she rejoiced in the meeting, hoping he would often call and see Miles, who must like him; she knew they were friends. Something of this she permitted him to understand.