"We are expected to go too, and are watched pretty close. Lady Glen, as we used to call her, has the eyes of Argus. And of course we who used to be on the other side are especially bound to pay her observance." "Don't you like the Duchess?" asked Mrs. Happerton. "Oh, yes;--I like her very well. She's mad, you know,--mad as a hatter,--and no one can ever guess what freak may come next. One always feels that she'll do something sooner or later that will startle all the world." "There was a queer story once,--wasn't there?" asked Mrs. Dick. "I never quite believed that," said Roby. "It was something about some lover she had before she was married. She went off to Switzerland. But the Duke,--he was Mr. Palliser then,--followed her very soon and it all came right." "When ladies are going to be duchesses, things do come right; don't they?" said Mrs. Happerton. On the other side of Mrs. Happerton was Mr. Wharton, quite unable to talk to his right-hand neighbour, the Secretary's wife. The elder Mrs. Roby had not, indeed, much to say for herself, and he during the whole dinner was in misery. He had resolved that there should be no intimacy of any kind between his daughter and Ferdinand Lopez,--nothing more than the merest acquaintance; and there they were, talking together before his very eyes, with more evident signs of understanding each other than were exhibited by any other two persons at the table. And yet he had no just ground of complaint against either of them. If people dine together at the same house, it may of course happen that they shall sit next to each other. And if people sit next to each other at dinner, it is expected that they shall talk. Nobody could accuse Emily of flirting; but then she was a girl who under no circumstances would condescend to flirt. But she had declared boldly to her father that she loved this man, and there she was in close conversation with him! Would it not be better for him to give up any further trouble, and let her marry the man? She would certainly do so sooner or later.