The carriage stopped at the stately portico of Erpingham House. Godolphin felt a little humiliated at being indebted to another--to a woman, for so splendid a tenement; but Constance, not penetrating into this sentiment, hastened up the broad stairs, and said, pointing to a door that led to her boudoir, "In that room cabinets have been formed and shaken." Godolphin laughed; he was alive only to the vanity of the boast, because he shared not the enthusiasm; this was Constance's weak point: her dark eye flashed fire. There's nothing bores a man more than the sort of uneasy quiet that follows a day's journey. Godolphin took his hat, and yawningly stretching himself, nodded to Constance, and moved to the door; they were in her dressing-room at the time. "Why, what, Percy, you cannot be going out now?" "Indeed I am, my love." "Where, in Heaven's name?" "To White's, to learn the news of the Opera, and the strength of the Ballet." "I had just rung for lights to show you the house!" said Constance, disappointed, and half-reproachfully. "Mercy, Constance! damp rooms and east winds together are too much. House, indeed! what can there be worth seeing in your English drawing-rooms after the marble palaces of Italy? Any commands?" "None!" said Constance, sinking back into her chair, with the tears in her eyes. Godolphin did not perceive them; he was only displeased by the cold tone of her answer, and he shut the door, muttering to himself--"Was there ever such indelicate ostentation!" "And thus," said Constance, bitterly, "I return to England; friendless, unloved, solitary in my schemes and my heart as I was before. Awake, my soul! thou art my sole strength, my sole support. Weak, weak that I was, to love this man in spite of--Well, well, I am not sunk so low as to regret." So saying, she wiped away a few tears, and turning with a strong effort from softer thoughts, leaned her cheek on her hand, and gazing on the fire, surrendered herself to the sterner and more plotting meditations which her return to the circle of her old ambition had at first called forth.