He moved a little way from the balustrade, and stood looking rather sheepishly towards the group he had left, doubtful whether he was expected to rejoin them, or to stroll about by himself, amusing himself as he pleased. He would have given a great deal of money for the poorest treatise on etiquette which would have told him as much as this; and in the mean time he lingered where he was, twirling a very big pair of lavender gloves which he had bought--through the agency of Mr. Hillary’s groom, and with no reference to their adaptability to his own hands--on the way down. Lingering thus, doubtful of himself, and painfully conscious of being very much out of keeping with the scene around him, he still thought of all manner of incongruous things; and among other fancies one special thought, which could have had no possible connection with the events of the day, kept surging upwards on the troubled sea of his reflections. “I never loved my cousin Susan,” he thought; “I know now that I never really loved my cousin Susan.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX. JULIA DESMOND MAKES HERSELF AGREEABLE. Captain Masters drove Lionel Hillary’s phaeton to the Cedars, when the crowd in the sunny gardens before the Château de Bourbon had dispersed, and only a few scattered groups still lingered about the pleasant home of exiled royalty. Amongst which loiterers might be observed some lively gentlemen of the occasional-reporter species, who wanted to ascertain whether there would not be something in the champagne and lobster-salad way before the _fête_ was finished. Captain Masters drove his friend Mr. Somerset back to the Cedars in the mail-phaeton, while Lionel Hillary and Francis Tredethlyn went home with the ladies in the landau.