It was now growing late--the assembly was breaking up, and Lady Tilney looked anxiously for some _cavalier_ to attend her to her carriage: but this was not a point of easy settlement. In degree he must be either of rank, or a dependent--one who was her equal, or one on whom she might confer distinction by her choice of his services. Neither such requisites, however, were to be found in the group around, and Lady Tilney, whilst feeling yet more and more the necessity of an exclusive circle, where such predicaments would be avoided, was doomed still further mortification in the approach of Colonel Temple, a person whom she hardly ever considered recognizable, and whose offer of assistance, made evidently with sarcastic reference to her being alone, came in a shape particularly offensive to her. "Will you allow me to have the honour of calling your carriage," he said, addressing her with easy familiarity; "or if you are going to walk through the rooms, allow me to escort you?" (offering his arm). "No," said Lady Tilney, in a manner that might have awed any one else; "I am going away immediately." "Well, then, let me call your carriage," he replied, with a tenacity that nothing could evade--whilst Lady Tilney continued to move on, terrified lest she should be seen _so_ attended. This apparent anxiety to avoid him, was, however, with Colonel Temple, the surest incitement to a continuance of his proffered attentions. It might not have been exactly consistent with the general, high breeding and politeness which distinguished Lady Feuillemerte's assemblies, for any one to have acted under this influence perhaps; but Col. Temple was a character known to all the world as such, and privileged to do things which no one else did. He was a man, too, of family, and felt his situation in society, in the midst of all his eccentricities. His want of refinement had its compensation in an honesty of disposition quite at variance with the measured forms of fashionable exclusiveness, but which made him generally beloved; while his shrewd sense, mixed with a certain vein of sarcastic humour, always penetrated the littleness of vanity, and often inflicted on it its severest wounds. Lady Tilney, from repeated slights, was a darling object of his attacks, and could she without compromise have purchased immunity from their never-failing and successful arrogance, by an honourable truce, she would gladly have done so. But Col. Temple was _too_ arrogant, _too_ presumptuous, to be checked by any defiance of ultra fashion--too independent, too high-spirited, to suffer a cold and haughty recognition, in place of the politeness and courtesy due to him as a gentleman, and thus this warfare had become interminable.