because Supply and Demand were
requiring all his services in preparation for the coming Session
of Parliament. But for five halcyon days he was prepared to devote
himself to the glories of Rome under the guidance of Augusta. He
did not of course sleep at the Palazzo Ruperti, where it delighted
Lady Tringle to inform her friends in Rome that she had a suite of
apartments "au premiere," but he ate there and drank there and almost
lived there; so that it became absolutely necessary to inform the
world of Rome that it was Augusta's destiny to become in course of
time the Honourable Mrs. Traffick, otherwise the close intimacy
would hardly have been discreet,--unless it had been thought, as the
ill-natured Marchesa had hinted, that Mr. Traffick was Lady Tringle's
elder brother. Augusta, however, was by no means ashamed of her
lover. Perhaps she felt that when it was known that she was about
to be the bride of so great a man then doors would be open for her
at any rate as wide as for her cousin. At this moment she was very
important to herself. She was about to convey no less a sum than
L120,000 to Mr. Traffick, who, in truth, as younger son of Lord
Boardotrade, was himself not well endowed. Considering her own
position and her future husband's rank and standing, she did not
know how a young woman could well be more important. She was very
important at any rate to Mr. Traffick. She was sure of that. When,
therefore, she learned that Ayala had been asked to a grand ball at
the Marchesa's, that Mr. Traffick was also to be among the guests,
and that none of the Tringles had been invited,--then her anger
became hot.

She must have been very stupid when she took it into her head to be
jealous of Mr. Traffick's attention to her cousin; stupid, at any
rate, when she thought that her cousin was laying out feminine lures
for Mr. Traffick. Poor Ayala! We shall see much of her in these
pages, and it may be well to declare of her at once that her ideas
at this moment about men,--or rather about a possible man,--were
confined altogether to the abstract. She had floating in her young
mind some fancies as to the beauty of love. That there should be a
hero must of course be necessary. But in her day-dreams this hero was
almost celestial,--or, at least, aethereal. It was a concentration
of poetic perfection to which there was not as yet any appanage of
apparel, of features, or of wealth. It was a something out of heaven
which should think i