anity would have been gratified, for you know
we pique ourselves on our sincerity, and say all we think."

"Yes? then you always think very unpleasantly. What an alternative!
which is the best, to speak ill or to think ill of one?"

"Pour l'amour de Dieu," cried the duke, "don't ask such puzzling
questions; you are always getting into those moral subtleties, which
I suppose you learn from Borodaile. He is a wonderful metaphysician, I
hear; I can answer for his chemical powers: the moment he enters a room
the very walls grow damp; as for me, I dissolve; I should flow into
a fountain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze one
again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw."

"Fi donc!" cried La Meronville. "I should be very angry had you not
taught me to be very indifferent--"

"To him!" said the duke, dryly. "I'm glad to hear it. He is not worth
une grande passion, believe me; but tell me, ma belle, who else sups
with you?"

"D'abord, Monsieur Linden, I trust," answered La Meronville, with a look
of invitation, to which Clarence bowed and smiled his assent, "Milord
D----, and Monsieur Trevanion, Mademoiselle Caumartin, and Le Prince
Pietro del Ordino."

"Nothing can be better arranged," said the duke. "But see, they are just
going to drop the curtain. Let me call your carriage."

"You are too good, milord," replied La Meronville, with a bow which
said, "of course;" and the duke, who would not have stirred three paces
for the first princess of the blood, hurried out of the box (despite
of Clarence's offer to undertake the commission) to inquire after the
carriage of the most notorious adventuress of the day.

Clarence was alone in the box with the beautiful Frenchwoman. To
say truth, Linden was far too much in love with Lady Flora, and too
occupied, as to his other thoughts, with the projects of ambition, to
be easily led into any disreputable or criminal liaison; he therefore
conversed with his usual ease, though with rather more than his usual
gallantry, without feeling the least touched by the charms of La
Meronville or the least desirous of supplanting Lord Borodaile in her
favour.

The duke reappeared, and announced the carriage. As, with La Meronville
leaning on his arm, Clarence hurried out, he accidentally looked up,
and saw on the head of the stairs Lady Westborough with her party (Lord
Borodaile among the rest) in waiting for her carriage. For almost the
first time in his lif