“With all my heart.” “In that case I am quite happy,” answered the lady, eagerly. “And you really do not wish to claim your freedom immediately, Laurence?” “Neither immediately nor in the remote future. If Mr. Jerningham should live to be a hundred years of age, at which period I should be eighty, the bachelor habits which you reprobate may perhaps have taken complete possession of me; but as Mr. Jerningham is not the kind of man whose life would be taken on the most reasonable terms by the Norwich Union or the European, I can afford to place my faith in time.” “Laurence, there is something so horrible in this calculation.” “I do not calculate; I wait. And now let us talk of something else. You have not asked me any of your usual questions about the toilettes at Marble Hill.” “I don’t want to know anything about them,” replied Mrs. Jerningham, frigidly. Mr. Desmond winced. A man’s intellect, however acute, is rarely equal to the exigences of feminine society. The châtelaine of Marble Hill happened to be one of those matrons who cannot bring themselves to think well of any woman living apart from her husband. Emily Jerningham’s name had been wont to figure in the lady’s visiting-list, and had vanished therefrom immediately after the establishment of the villa at Hampton. “The fête was rather a dull affair,” said Mr. Desmond, presently, with that clumsy hypocrisy which is the male creature’s best substitute for tact. “What did Lady Laura Paunceford wear?” asked Mrs. Jerningham, with feminine inconsistency. “Oh, some wonderful costume of blue, very cloudy and voluminous, like the dress of a goddess in one of Sir Godfrey Kneller’s ceilings. I believe she wore something that was intended for a bonnet--a blue gauze butterfly, skewered to her head by silver arrows.” “Did she look well?” “By no means; she is not a daylight beauty.” “And Miss Fitzormond?” “Miss Fitzormond’s dress was absolutely dowdy. A new style, Mrs. Castlemaine told me; the last rage in Paris; and supposed to have been developed from the fair Eugénie’s inner consciousness. It is rather hard upon the Empress that she should be accredited with every atrocity invented by the enterprising milliners of the Fauburg St. Honoré.” “What was the dress?” Mrs. Jerningham demanded, languidly. “Something mauve, festooned with steel chains and spikes; Miss Fitzormond looked like a mauve prisoner escaped from Newgate.” “Were there many pretty women at the fête? No; you needn’t answer me. Of course you will declare that you found yourself amidst an assemblage of Gorgons. Men are so fearful of wounding a woman’s vanity, that they rarely remember she may by some possibility possess a grain or two of common-sense. Let us go to the dining-room. It is time for luncheon, and I dare say my aunt has been sending skirmishers out to look for me.” “There is a parcel of books and music at the station. Will you send for it?” “With delight. How good of you to bring me more new books!”