“Unfortunately, too well, Madam!” She said no more but there was a trouble in her face that spoke volumes as she stood patient by the table, waiting the Duchess’s pleasure. It was then for the first time that she became aware of a tall gentleman standing silent by the fireplace. A very splendid gentleman in brown and gold, and with a dark and melancholy face like the Stuart portraits at Hampton Court. It was not without the hidden sanction of the blood that his Grace resembled a fine Vandyke of that unfortunate family. Clothe him in armour and a falling lace collar, and his connection needed not trumpeting, but spoke for itself in long dark eyes and lips full of sensibility and tenderness. But that’s an old scandal. Diana knew nothing of this, but as she looked upon him a strange romantic interest that surrounded him like a vapour, not to be expressed but visible, was perceptible to even her young untutored mind. Worded, it was nothing but this: “Who may be this great gentleman who looks so proud and sad?” Thought, it was a hundred things more and all inexpressible. He moved slightly forward, and the Duchess revolved majestic in her hoop. “This is his Grace the Duke of Bolton, Mrs. Beswick. A great devotee to your charming profession. Rely on’t the secret of your name shall go no further than his Grace. He and I are sworn friends, and wherever ’tis possible to advance your interests he’ll second me.” “I had the happiness to be presented to Mrs. Fenton in the green-room at Portugal Street, but sure she can’t remember one stranger among so many.” She looked full at him. Certainly he could not complain that he saw not her face now. He thought it one of incomparable sweetness, lovely in feature and colour, but how should any man think otherwise? He drew a little nearer as if he would have willingly had her speak with him. And at that moment two footmen flung the wings of the great door wide open, and the groom of the chambers announced: “My Lady Fanny Armine. My Lord Baltimore.” CHAPTER VII THEY entered, his Lordship with an excess of gallantry, if such can be where a fine woman and a Duchess is concerned, and her Ladyship in a prodigious hoop and scarf all ruffles and frills, the latest adornment from Paris, a hat with noble plumes curved high over one pretty ear and drooping above the other. A perfect Madam Flippanta so far as looks and dress went, but more, much more in her than this for those who knew how to comprehend. She ran to her Grace with a pretty little cry and a butterfly kiss on the cheek, and swept a careless curtsey to Diana, seeing merely a young lady, supposedly some country cousin of the Duchess. “I’m come, my dear Duchess, on a charming errand. ’Tis to bid you come see my new Chinese monsters, the dearest, most enchanting porcelain lions, and you do but put a stick of scented something—I think ’tis incense—in their jaws, and their eyes glow and the whole room is perfumed.”