Lady Monmouth pointed to the seat which Flora had occupied. ‘I thank your Ladyship,’ said Mr. Rigby, with a somewhat grave and yet perplexed expression of countenance, and seating himself at some little distance from his companion, ‘but I am very well here.’ There was a pause. Instead of responding to the invitation of Lady Monmouth to communicate with his usual readiness and volubility, Mr. Rigby was silent, and, if it were possible to use such an expression with regard to such a gentleman, apparently embarrassed. ‘Well,’ said Lady Monmouth, ‘does he know about the Millbanks?’ ‘Everything,’ said Mr. Rigby. ‘And what did he say?’ ‘His Lordship was greatly shocked,’ replied Mr. Rigby, with a pious expression of features. ‘Such monstrous ingratitude! As his Lordship very justly observed, “It is impossible to say what is going on under my own roof, or to what I can trust.”’ ‘But he made an exception in your favour, I dare say, my dear Mr. Rigby,’ said Lady Monmouth. ‘Lord Monmouth was pleased to say that I possessed his entire confidence,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘and that he looked to me in his difficulties.’ ‘Very sensible of him. And what is to become of Mr. Coningsby?’ ‘The steps which his Lordship is about to take with reference to the establishment generally,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘will allow the connection that at present subsists between that gentleman and his noble relative, now that Lord Monmouth’s eyes are open to his real character, to terminate naturally, without the necessity of any formal explanation.’ ‘But what do you mean by the steps he is going to take in his establishment generally?’ ‘Lord Monmouth thinks he requires change of scene.’ ‘Oh! is he going to drag me abroad again?’ exclaimed Lady Monmouth, with great impatience. ‘Why, not exactly,’ said Mr. Rigby, rather demurely. ‘I hope he is not going again to that dreadful castle in Lancashire.’ ‘Lord Monmouth was thinking that, as you were tired of Paris, you might find some of the German Baths agreeable.’ ‘Why, there is nothing that Lord Monmouth dislikes so much as a German bathing-place!’ ‘Exactly,’ said Mr. Rigby. ‘Then how capricious in him wanting to go to them?’ ‘He does not want to go to them!’ ‘What do you mean, Mr. Rigby?’ said Lady Monmouth, in a lower voice, and looking him full in the face with a glance seldom bestowed. There was a churlish and unusual look about Rigby. It was as if malignant, and yet at the same time a little frightened, he had screwed himself into doggedness. ‘I mean what Lord Monmouth means. He suggests that if your Ladyship were to pass the summer at Kissengen, for example, and a paragraph in the _Morning Post_ were to announce that his Lordship was about to join you there, all awkwardness would be removed; and no one could for a moment take the liberty of supposing, even if his Lordship did not ultimately reach you, that anything like a separation had occurred.’ ‘A separation!’ said Lady Monmouth.