o. But now his gratitude for that favour was considerably
abated. He did not care just now for the honour of eating his lunch
in the presence of Mr. Gotobed, the American minister, whom he found
there already in the drawing-room with Mrs. Gotobed, nor with Ezekiel
Sevenkings, the great American poet from the far West, who sat silent
and stared at him in an unpleasant way. When Sir Timothy Beeswax was
announced, with Lady Beeswax and her daughter, his gratification
certainly was not increased. And the last comer,--who did not arrive
indeed till they were all seated at the table,--almost made him start
from his chair and take his departure suddenly. That last comer was
no other than Mr. Adolphus Longstaff. As it happened he was seated
next to Dolly, with Lady Beeswax on the other side of him. Whereas
his Holy of Holies was on the other side of Dolly! The arrangement
made seemed to him to have been monstrous. He had endeavoured to get
next to Isabel; but she had so manoeuvred that there should be a
vacant chair between them. He had not much regarded this because a
vacant chair may be pushed on one side. But before he had made all
his calculations Dolly Longstaff was sitting there! He almost thought
that Dolly winked at him in triumph,--that very Dolly who an hour ago
had promised to take himself off upon his Asiatic travels!

Sir Timothy and the minister kept up the conversation very much
between them, Sir Timothy flattering everything that was American,
and the minister finding fault with very many things that were
English. Now and then Mr. Boncassen would put in a word to soften
the severe honesty of his countryman, or to correct the euphemistic
falsehoods of Sir Timothy. The poet seemed always to be biding his
time. Dolly ventured to whisper a word to his neighbour. It was but
to say that the frost had broken up. But Silverbridge heard it and
looked daggers at everyone. Then Lady Beeswax expressed to him a hope
that he was going to do great things in Parliament this Session. "I
don't mean to go near the place," he said, not at all conveying any
purpose to which he had really come, but driven by the stress of the
moment to say something that should express his general hatred of
everybody. Mr. Lupton was there, on the other side of Isabel, and
was soon engaged with her in a pleasant familiar conversation. Then
Silverbridge remembered that he had always thought Lupton to be a
most conceited prig. Nobody gave himself so man