This speech certainly did _put him out_, and in his heart Mr. Leslie Winyard cursed what he called her _niaiserie_; but he determined that, sooner or later, he would be revenged. Concealing, however, his mortification, he replied, "You were too good to consider me in any way; but I am sure nothing that you could do would ever give me a feeling of displeasure, whatever it might do of regret." He modified the expression of his eyes as well as that of his words, and entered with her into a long comparison of the charms of Paris and London in their respective societies and manners, which engaged her attention; and she listened with great complacency for some time, during which he had continued to move his chair nearer and nearer her own, and to appear to the public to be deeply engaged in the most interesting conversation, while, at the same time, he succeeded in allaying any discomfort she might have felt at his own too-marked admiration, previously shown, by turning her attention into a totally different channel, and determining to reserve a more open avowal of his sentiments for a more favourable and distant period, when suddenly the box door opened. Lady Glenmore started forward with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, supposing it to be her husband; but in this she was mistaken, for Lady Tenderden entered alone. "I beg your pardon, my _dear ladi_, for being so late," said the latter; "but you know how impossible it is to get away in any time from a dinner party"--[the _impossibilities_ of a fine lady are to be understood with certain modifications and meanings which do not belong to the literal signification of the word]--"and I regret being detained on all accounts;" Lady Tenderden went on to say, "first, because I have lost your society; then, for the sake of de play, which of all things I wanted to have seen: but you have been amused, I hope?"