"Your own good-nature does not allow you to see these things; you have been used, you know, to consider all that party perfect; but"--Lord Albert sighed deeply--"but you will find," continued Lady Hamlet Vernon, fully aware of the meaning of that emotion which had escaped him, and wishing to abstract his mind from the cause, by adverting to mere general topics, "you will find that the world is made up of classes. There are the Duchess D'Hermanton, Lady Borrowdaile, Lady Aveling, form one class; Lady Melcombe and her people form another; your friends the Misses D. another; and we, you know, form a class totally apart." Lord Albert listened to this kind of conversation sometimes with attention, sometimes abstractedly. His mind frequently adverted to totally different subjects; but still he sat by Lady Hamlet Vernon's side the whole evening, or walked with her about the rooms. In doing this, he was not aware of the occasion he gave for remark; still less did he know that Lady Delamere had observed him in Lady Hamlet Vernon's box the preceding evening, and that that very circumstance had caused Lady Adeline's illness; for if he had guessed this truth, different indeed would have been the result of his morning's interview with her. His appearance again, on the present evening, with Lady Hamlet Vernon, very naturally occasioned Lady Delamere's altered manner; but he saw in her behaviour only the confirmation of an intention, on the part of Lady Dunmelraise and her daughter, and of the whole family, to break with him altogether. Neither did it occur to him, so prepossessed was he with the idea that Adeline was happier in Mr. Foley's society than in his own, that his excuse for not dining with Lady Dunmelraise must now appear to have been false, and framed expressly for the purpose of fulfilling another engagement. How very different would have been his feelings, could he have known the anguish he inflicted on her who still loved him so truly; and the additional wounds she would receive, when the circumstance of his seeming devotion to Lady Hamlet Vernon, during the whole of that evening, with the aggravation attending it of his supposed duplicity, should become known to her! The fact was, although he was perfectly unconscious of it, that Lord Albert's attentions to Lady Hamlet Vernon began to be considered in the light of a _liaison_ by the world; yet notwithstanding he was deemed too wise to risk matrimony, yet that was the last thing cared for. In society, arrangements which included _one_ now generally included the other. The young men rejoiced in Lord Albert's being brought to their own level, as they thought; and all who had any thing to hide in their own conduct felt less afraid of his superiority, when they saw him on the verge of an intrigue of the same nature as many of their own.