The first person she saw, as she entered the Duchess’s, was Lionel Delville. She was not prepared for this, and it annoyed her considerably. She was forced into his society before she had by any means decided on the line of conduct, or rather the tone of manner (for the whole question was an affair of manner), which she meant to adopt. He instantly greeted her with a serious air of tender interest and concern, and ventured to look in her eyes with an inquiring expression, as if he expected to ascertain how her tête-à-tête with Lord Montreville had gone off. His eyes disconcerted her. She was distressed at meeting them. She looked in every other direction; but although she might avoid seeing them upon her, she could not avoid feeling them upon her. She made careless, indifferent, insipid remarks, in rather a higher pitched voice than was common to her. Lionel saw that she had been lectured, perceived that she was no longer at her ease, and took courage from her evident _gêne_. He expressed his happiness at meeting her again “so soon;” said he had come to the Duchess’s because he had imagined it likely she might prefer a quiet party to a ball “that evening,” and enquired whether he might call “as usual.” His whole air had in it something confidential, as if there existed between them a mystery, which both understood, without any need of explanation. In vain Lucy tried to be easy, and to laugh—to be any thing but mysterious. She answered, “Oh, yes!” or “to be sure,” and “I suppose so,” in an affectedly loud and unconcerned tone, to all the half-whispered expressions of solicitude which he was pouring into her ear. Whatever subject she started, he contrived to throw a shade of sentiment over it. She thought herself safe in dashing into the last speech of Lord Thorcaster, and loudly declared her admiration of his eloquence; for she had passed the preceding night with her head through the ventilator of the House of Commons. This led to a discussion upon eloquence, and Lionel said “he could imagine circumstances in which there might be more eloquence in three short words, than in all the flowing sentences, the rounded periods, the flowers of rhetoric, employed by sages and senators since the world began.” “Eloquence in three words! What can they be?” He kept his face looking straight forward, but uttered, in a low, clear, musical voice, which reached her ear, and her’s alone, “What think you of the three words ‘I love you?’” Lucy felt hot all over; but she rejoined, with what calmness she could command, “I should say those three words conveyed an agreeable,—or, perhaps, a disagreeable fact, in the plainest and simplest manner, and had nothing to do with eloquence.” Lionel saw he had gone too far. “When your little boy first lisps, ‘Mamma, I love you!’ I think you will agree with me, that there can be eloquence in the words.”