At this moment, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, advancing with her train, and amid the looks of the assembly, some admiring, some affecting the contemptuous, and a few not remarkably respectful, approached George. From behind him, where her head just touched the back of his elbow, Harriet's blue eyes were fixed upon her. But the triumphant beauty was quite unconscious of their gaze. She stopped for a moment, and spoke to George. "Good evening, Mr. Dallas. Is Mr. Felton here? No? He is expecting his son, I suppose." "He does not know, madam. He has not heard from him." "Indeed! But Arthur is always lazy about letter-writing. However, he will be here soon, to answer for himself." "Will he? Do you know, my uncle is very anxious--" She interrupted him with a laugh and a slight gesture of her hand, in which the woman watching her discerned an insolent meaning, then said, as she passed on: "He knows where to find me, if he wants to know what I can tell him. Good evening, Mr. Dallas." "Did you hear that, Harriet?" said George, in an agitated voice, after he had watched the brilliant figure as it mingled with the crowd in the long saloon. "I did," said Harriet. "And though I don't understand her meaning, I think there is something wrong and cruel in it. That is a bold, bad woman, George," she went on, speaking earnestly; "and though _I_ am not exactly the person entitled to warn you against dangerous friends--" "Yes, yes, you are," interrupted George, eagerly, as he drew her hand again under his arm, and they moved on; "indeed you are. You are the best of friends to me. When I think of all the past, I hardly know how to thank you enough. All that happened before I went to Amsterdam, and the way you helped me out of my scrapes, and all that happened since; the good advice you gave me! Only think what would have happened to me if I had not acted upon it." He was going on eagerly, when she stopped him by the iron pressure of her fingers upon his arm. "Pray don't," she said. "I am not strong now. I can't talk of these--of anything that agitates me." "I beg your pardon," said George, soothingly. "I ought to have remembered. And also, Mrs. Routh, I know you never like to be thanked. What were you going to say when I thoughtlessly interrupted you?" "I was going to say," she replied, in quite her customary tone, "that I don't think this American lady would be a very safe friend, and that I don't think she feels kindly towards your uncle. There was something malicious in her tone. Is your uncle uneasy about his son?" The question put George into a difficulty, and Harriet, with unfailing tact, perceived in a moment that it had done so. "I remember," she said, "the tone in which Mr. Felton wrote of his son, in his first letter, was not favourable to him; but this is a family matter, George, and you are quite right not to tell me about it."