ange again, you will notify the important
circumstance to me, I trust."

"I will," said Clara, and no violent declaration of the impossibility
of her changing again would have had such an effect on her hearer.

Mrs. Mountstuart scanned her face for a new reading of it to match with
her later impressions.

"I am to do as I please with the knowledge I have gained?"

"I am utterly in your hands, madam."

"I have not meant to be unkind."

"You have not been unkind; I could embrace you."

"I am rather too shattered, and kissing won't put me together. I
laughed at Lady Busshe! No wonder you went off like a rocket with a
disappointing bouquet when I told you you had been successful with poor
Sir Willoughby and he could not give you up. I noticed that. A woman
like Lady Busshe, always prying for the lamentable, would have required
no further enlightenment. Has he a temper?"

Clara did not ask her to signalize the person thus abruptly obtruded.

"He has faults," she said.

"There's an end to Sir Willoughby, then! Though I don't say he will
give you up even when he hears the worst, if he must hear it, as for
his own sake he should. And I won't say he ought to give you up. He'll
be the pitiable angel if he does. For you--but you don't deserve
compliments; they would be immoral. You have behaved badly, badly,
badly. I have never had such a right-about-face in my life. You will
deserve the stigma: you will be notorious: you will be called Number
Two. Think of that! Not even original! We will break the conference, or
I shall twaddle to extinction. I think I heard the luncheon bell."

"It rang."

"You don't look fit for company, but you had better come."

"Oh, yes; every day it's the same."

"Whether you're in my hands or I'm in yours, we're a couple of
arch-conspirators against the peace of the family whose table we're
sitting at, and the more we rattle the viler we are, but we must do it
to ease our minds."

Mrs. Mountstuart spread the skirts of her voluminous dress, remarking
further: "At a certain age our teachers are young people: we learn by
looking backward. It speaks highly for me that I have not called you
mad.--Full of faults, goodish-looking, not a bad talker, cheerful,
poorish;--and she prefers that to this!" the great lady exclaimed in
her reverie while emerging from the circle of shrubs upon a view of the
Hall. Colonel De Craye advanced to her; certainly good-looking,
certainly cheerful, by no means a