Mayfair.
They had both waved their hands from the carriage window and called out,
"Be sure you come and see us," as they drove away. "You will come
to-night," they had stipulated with Sir Tom and Jock. It was like a new
toy which filled them with glee. Could it be possible that those two
adventurers going off to their little temporary home with smiles so
genuine, with so simple a delight in their new beginning, were not, in
their strange way, innocent, full of guile and shifts as one was, and
the other so apt a scholar? Lucy would have joined in all this pleasure
two days ago, but she could not now. She went home to her luxurious
house, where all was ready, as if she had not been absent an hour. How
wonderfully wealth smooths away the inconveniences of change! and how
little it has to do, Lucy thought, with the comfort of the soul! No need
for any exertion on her part, any scuffling for the first arrival, any
trouble of novelty. She came from the Hall to London without any sense
of change. Had she been compelled to superintend the arrangement of her
house, to make it habitable, to make it pretty, that would have done her
good. But the only thing for her to do was to see Mr. Chervil, her
trustee, who waited upon her according to her request, and who, after
the usual remonstrances, took her instructions about the gift to Bice
very unwillingly, but still with a forced submission. "If I cannot make
you see the folly of it, Lady Randolph, and if Sir Thomas does not
object, I don't know what more is to be said." "There is nothing more to
be said," Lucy said, with a smile; but there was this difficulty in the
proceeding which she had not thought of, that Bice's name all this time
was unknown to her--Beatrice di Forno-Populo, she supposed, but the
Contessa had never called her so, and it was necessary to be exact, Mr.
Chervil said. He hailed this as an occasion of delay. He was not so
violent as he had been on previous occasions when Lucy was young; and he
did not, like Mr. Rushton, assume the necessity of speaking to Sir Tom.
Mr. Chervil was a London solicitor, and knew very little about Sir Tom.
But he was glad to seize upon anything that was good for a little delay.

After this interview was over it was a mingled vexation and relief to
Lucy to see the Dowager drive up to the door. Lady Randolph the elder
was always in London from the first moment possible. She preferred the
first bursting of the spring in the squares and park