Handsome does! thought Beauclerc: and the mysterious warning of his unknown friend recurred to him. He was astonished, alarmed, furious; but the whispering party had passed on, and just then Lady Cecilia descrying Mr. Churchill in the distance, she made towards him. Conversation sure to be had in abundance from him. He discerned them from afar, and was happily prepared both with a ready bit of wit and with a proper greeting. His meeting with Lady Cecilia was, of course, just the same as ever. He took it up where he left off at Clarendon Park; no difference, no hiatus. His bow to Beauclerc and Helen, to Helen and Beauclerc, joined in one little sweep of a congratulatory motion, was incomparable: it said everything that a bow could say, and more. It implied such a happy freedom from envy or jealousy; such a polite acquiescence in the decrees of fate; such a philosophic indifference; such a cool sarcastic superiority to the event; and he began to Lady Cecilia with one of his prepared impromptus: “At the instant your ladyship came up, I am afraid I started, actually in a trance, I do believe. Methought I was--where do you think? In the temple of Jaggernaut.” “Why?” said Lady Cecilia smiling. “Methought,” continued Horace, “that I was in the temple of Jaggernaut--that one strange day in the year, when ill castes meet, when all distinction of castes and ranks is forgotten--the abomination of mixing them all together permitted, for their sins no doubt--high caste and low, from the abandoned Paria to the Brahmin prince, from their Billingsgate and Farringilon Without, suppose, up to their St. James’s, Street and Grosvenor Square, mingle, mingle, ye who mingle may, white spirits and grey, black spirits and blue. Now, pray look around: is not this Jaggernaut night with Lady Castlefort?” “And you,” said Lady Cecilia; “are not you the great Jaggernaut himself, driving over all in your triumphant chariot of sarcasm, and crushing all the victims in your way?” This took place with Horace; it put him in spirits, in train, and he fired away at Lady Castlefort, whom he had been flattering _à loutrance_ five minutes before. “I so admire that acting of sacrifice in your _belle cousine_ to-night! Pasta herself could not do it better. There is a look of ‘Oh, ye just gods! what a victim am I!’ and with those upturned eyes so charming! Well, and seriously it is a sad sacrifice. Fathers have flinty hearts by parental prescription; but husbands--_petit Bossus_ especially--should have mercy for their own sakes; they should not strain their marital power too far.” “But,” said Lady Cecilia, “it is curious, that one born and bred such an ultra exclusive as Louisa Castlefort, should be obliged after her marriage immediately to open her doors and turn ultra liberale, or an universal suffragist--all in consequence of these _mésalliances_.”