ess: and it was
high festival and gaiety, but her heart was breaking. Lady Randolph,
afraid of what she had done, yet virulent against the Contessa, had
suggested that it should be given up. It was easy to do such a thing--a
few notes, a paragraph in the newspaper, a report of a cousin dead, or a
sudden illness; any excuse would do. But Lucy was not to be so moved.
There was in her soft bosom a sense of justice which was almost stern,
and through all her troubles she remembered that Bice, at least, had a
claim upon all Sir Thomas Randolph could do for her, such as nobody
else could have. Under what roof but his should she make her first
appearance in the world? Lucy held sternly with a mixture of bitterness
and tenderness to Bice's rights. In all this misery Bice was without
blame, the only innocent person, the one most wronged, more wronged even
than was Lucy herself. She it was who would have to bear the deepest
stigma, without any fault of hers. Whatever could be done to advance her
(as she counted advancement), to make her happy (as she reckoned
happiness) it was right she should have it done. Lucy suppressed her own
wretchedness heroically for this cause. She bore the confusion that had
come into her life without saying a word for the sake of the other young
creature who was her fellow-sufferer. How hard it was to do she could
not have told, nor did any one suspect, except, vaguely, Sir Tom
himself, who perceived some tragic mischief that was at work without
knowing how it had come there or what it was. He tried to come to some
explanation, but Lucy would have no explanation. She avoided him as much
as it was possible to do. She had nothing to say when he questioned her.
Till the 26th! Nothing, she was resolved, should interfere with that.
And then--but not the baby in the nursery knew less than Lucy what was
to happen then.

They had come to London on the 2d, so that this day of fate was three
weeks off, and during that time the Contessa had made no small progress
in her affairs. Three weeks is a long time in a house which is open to
visitors, even if only from four o'clock in the afternoon, every day,
and without intermission; and indeed that was not the whole, for the
ladies were accessible elsewhere than in the house in Mayfair. It had
pleased the Contessa not to be visible when Lord Montjoie called at a
somewhat early hour on the very earliest day. He was a young man who
knew the world, and not one to have thi