ence.

They were upon this footing, when she resolved to cure Hamilton, as she
had lately done her husband, of all his remaining tenderness for Lady
Castlemaine. For her it was no difficult undertaking: the conversation
of the one was disagreeable, from the unpolished state of her manners,
her ill-timed pride, her uneven temper, and extravagant humours Lady
Chesterfield, on the contrary, knew how to heighten her charms with all
the bewitching attractions in the power of a woman to invent who wishes
to make a conquest.

Besides all this, she had greater opportunities of making advances to
him than to any other: she lived at the Duke of Ormond's, at Whitehall,
where Hamilton, as was said before, had free admittance at all hours:
her extreme coldness, or rather the disgust which she showed for her
husband's returning affection, wakened his natural inclination to
jealousy: he suspected that she could not so very suddenly pass from
anxiety to indifference for him, without some secret object of a new
attachment; and, according to the maxim of all jealous husbands, he
immediately put in practice all his experience and industry, in order to
make a discovery, which was to destroy his own happiness.

Hamilton, who knew his disposition, was, on the other hand, upon his
guard, and the more he advanced in his intrigue, the more attentive
was he to remove every degree of suspicion from the Earl's mind: he
pretended to make him his confidant, in the most unguarded and open
manner, of his passion for Lady Castlemaine: he complained of her
caprice, and most earnestly desired his advice how to succeed with a
person whose affections he alone had entirely possessed.

Chesterfield, who was flattered with this discourse, promised him his
protection with greater sincerity than it had been demanded:
Hamilton, therefore, was no further embarrassed than to preserve Lady
Chesterfield's reputation, who, in his opinion, declared herself rather
too openly in his favour: but whilst he was diligently employed in
regulating, within the rules of discretion, the partiality she expressed
for him, and in conjuring her to restrain her glances within bounds, she
was receiving those of the Duke of York; and, what is more, made them
favourable returns.

He thought that he had perceived it, as well as every one besides; but
he thought likewise, that all the world was deceived as well as himself:
how could he trust his own eyes, as to what those of Lady Che