As he joined Lord Boileau on the staircase, the latter said to him, in a low tone, "You will never forgive me, Winyard, I fear, for this interruption; but how very cleverly the Glenmore turned it off! I give her great credit for her address." Leslie Winyard made no answer, but smiled complacently, and in a manner that left little doubt of the innuendo which he wished his silence to convey; while he inwardly triumphed in the assurance, that he had in Lord Boileau a willing witness and ready herald of all he could wish to be believed. CHAPTER VII. THE TICKET. The allusion made by Lord Albert D'Esterre on the preceding evening to the _fête_ at Avington Park, his excuses and explanations on the subject of the ticket, together with Lady Dunmelraise's doubtful mode of receiving them, were circumstances not lost on Mr. Foley; and the hope that he might not only please Lady Adeline by the attention, but also, in the event of his success, tacitly throw suspicion on Lord Albert's sincerity, determined him on endeavouring to procure her, himself, a ticket for the _fête_. Consequently, at an early hour the following morning, he sought Lady Hamlet Vernon, to request her assistance in the accomplishment of his wishes. The latter possessed too much penetration not to see, in Mr. Foley's anxiety, an elucidation of the disquiet and uneasiness betrayed by Lord Albert D'Esterre when the subject of the breakfast had been accidentally alluded to at Lady Glenmore's by Lord Raynham; and imagined that she perceived, at once, a point where her own wishes might be advanced, at the same time that she appeared attending only to those of the friend who now applied to her. If it was clear to Lady Hamlet Vernon that some misunderstanding, some unpleasant feeling, had existed in Lord Albert's mind, connected with the subject, no better or surer index of it could be found, than in the eager and pressing solicitude displayed on the same point by the person whom she had herself principally influenced in the attempt to become his rival; and to procure the ticket so much wished for (if a possibility of doing so remained) was therefore the immediate conclusion in Lady Hamlet Vernon's mind.