‘I am in despair about Harry,’ she said, as she gave a finger to Sidonia, ‘but he told me not to wait for him later than eight. I suppose he is kept at the House. Do you know anything of him, Lord Henry?’ ‘You may make yourself quite easy about him,’ said Lord Henry. ‘He promised Vavasour to support a motion which he has to-day, and perhaps speak on it. I ought to be there too, but Charles Buller told me there would certainly be no division and so I ventured to pair off with him.’ ‘He will come with Vavasour,’ said Sidonia, ‘who makes up our party. They will be here before we have seated ourselves.’ The gentlemen had exchanged the usual inquiry, whether there was anything new to-day, without waiting for the answer. Sidonia introduced Tancred and Lord Marney. ‘And what have you been doing to-day?’ said Edith to Sybil, by whose side she had seated herself. ‘Lady Bardolf did nothing last night but gronder me, because you never go to her parties. In vain I said that you looked upon her as the most odious of her sex, and her balls the pest of society. She was not in the least satisfied. And how is Gerard?’ ‘Why, we really have been very uneasy about him,’ said Lady Marney, ‘but the last bulletin,’ she added, with a smile, ‘announces a tooth.’ ‘Next year you must give him a pony, and let him ride with my Harry; I mean my little Harry, Harry of Monmouth I call him; he is so like a portrait Mr. Coningsby has of his grandfather, the same debauched look.’ ‘Your dinner is served, sir!’ Sidonia offered his hand to Lady Marney; Edith was attended by Tancred. A door at the end of the room opened into a marble corridor, which led to the dining-room, decorated in the same style as the library. It was a suite of apartments which Sidonia used for an intimate circle like the present. CHAPTER XX. _A Modern Troubadour_