ll not die of disgrace."

CHAPTER XVII

Scandal, meanwhile, was collecting her eager forces for a great campaign
against the Orange marriage. It was unanimously decided that the affair
could not be hushed up. Sympathy--within wise limits--was on the side of
the lovers, but sympathy, nevertheless, expressed a desire to hear
fuller particulars. Society journalism was, at that time, just coming
into vogue, and the weekly papers contained several references to the
strange rumour of an approaching divorce. Hartley Penborough and the
members of the Capitol Club were wondering what line they ought to take.
They intended to stand by Robert, but they did not wish to advertise
their loyalty. The Carlton set were divided into two camps--those who
thought Orange unlucky, and those who thought him an alien adventurer.
So far as these opinions touched his career, both were damaging. The
friends of Lord Wight and Lady Fitz Rewes had always been jealous of the
young man. They discussed him now with ferocious pity, announcing his
ruin in every circle. Sara de Treverell's associates were mostly of the
Diplomatic Corps. These, well informed about Alberian affairs and
Parflete's history, feared much mischief. The old Catholics were
dismayed at the new convert's entanglement--especially as he had
recently been elected to Parliament. The more timorous among them--in a
panic--entertained unfounded doubts about his orthodoxy, and the rest
deplored the injudicious attention bestowed on mere recruits to the
Ancient Faith. Converts then were looked upon, in England, with a
certain suspicion. At that period the magnificent services of Dr. Newman
and Cardinal Manning were far more appreciated at Rome than they were in
the drawing-rooms of English Catholic society. Orange, following his own
instincts and the advice of Newman, avoided rather than sought the small
group which attempted to make the Eternal Church a Select Committee of
the Uncommonly Good. To one who had spent his youth in a great Catholic
nation, and came himself from one of the princely families of France,
the servitude necessarily involved by the fact of joining any
_coterie_--no matter how agreeable--could possess no sort of attraction.
His Catholic friends were chiefly among the Jesuits, an order which, by
devotion, genius, and courage, has excited that fear from all men which
is the highest homage this world can offer to integrity. His personal
sorrow, therefore, was not