urse, as Laura knew, about Selina's disappearance, in the
way of treating it as irregular; but the servants pretended so hard not
to be aware of anything in particular that they were like pickpockets
looking with unnatural interest the other way after they have cribbed a
fellow's watch. To a certainty, in a day or two, the governess would
give him warning: she would come and tell him she couldn't stay in such
a place, and he would tell her, in return, that she was a little donkey
for not knowing that the place was much more respectable now than it had
ever been.

This information Selina's husband imparted to Lady Davenant, to whom he
discoursed with infinite candour and humour, taking a highly
philosophical view of his position and declaring that it suited him down
to the ground. His wife couldn't have pleased him better if she had done
it on purpose; he knew where she had been every hour since she quitted
Laura at the opera--he knew where she was at that moment and he was
expecting to find another telegram on his return to Grosvenor Place. So
if it suited _her_ it was all right, wasn't it? and the whole thing
would go as straight as a shot. Lady Davenant took him up to see Laura,
though she viewed their meeting with extreme disfavour, the girl being
in no state for talking. In general Laura had little enough mind for it,
but she insisted on seeing Lionel: she declared that if this were not
allowed her she would go after him, ill as she was--she would dress
herself and drive to his house. She dressed herself now, after a
fashion; she got upon a sofa to receive him. Lady Davenant left him
alone with her for twenty minutes, at the end of which she returned to
take him away. This interview was not fortifying to the girl, whose
idea--the idea of which I have said that she was tenacious--was to go
after her sister, to take possession of her, cling to her and bring her
back. Lionel, of course, wouldn't hear of taking her back, nor would
Selina presumably hear of coming; but this made no difference in Laura's
heroic plan. She would work it, she would compass it, she would go down
on her knees, she would find the eloquence of angels, she would achieve
miracles. At any rate it made her frantic not to try, especially as even
in fruitless action she should escape from herself--an object of which
her horror was not yet extinguished.

As she lay there through inexorably conscious hours the picture of that
hideous moment in the box