understand
all these new ways,--don't you think perhaps--?"

"No, I don't think. I don't think anything except that you are very
ill-natured." Then he got up and, after making formal adieux to both
the ladies, left the house.

As soon as he was gone Lady Mabel began to laugh, but the least
apprehensive ears would have perceived that the laughter was
affected. Miss Cassewary did not laugh at all, but sat bolt upright
and looked very serious. "Upon my honour," said the younger lady, "he
is the most beautifully simple-minded human being I ever knew in my
life."

"Then I wouldn't laugh at him."

"How can one help it? But of course I do it with a purpose."

"What purpose?"

"I think he is making a fool of himself. If somebody does not
interfere he will go so far that he will not be able to draw back
without misbehaving."

"I thought," said Miss Cassewary, in a very low voice, almost
whispering, "I thought that he was looking for a wife elsewhere."

"You need not think of that again," said Lady Mab, jumping up from
her seat. "I had thought of it too. But as I told you before, I
spared him. He did not really mean it with me;--nor does he mean
it with this American girl. Such young men seldom mean. They drift
into matrimony. But she will not spare him. It would be a national
triumph. All the States would sing a paean of glory. Fancy a New York
belle having compassed a Duke!"

"I don't think it possible. It would be too horrid."

"I think it quite possible. As for me, I could teach myself to think
it best as it is, were I not so sure that I should be better for him
than so many others. But I shouldn't love him."

"Why not love him?"

"He is such a boy. I should always treat him like a boy,--spoiling
him and petting him, but never respecting him. Don't run away with
any idea that I should refuse him from conscientious motives, if he
were really to ask me. I too should like to be a Duchess. I should
like to bring all this misery at home to an end."

"But you did refuse him."

"Not exactly;--because he never asked me. For the moment I was weak,
and so I let him have another chance. I shall not have been a good
friend to him if it ends in his marrying this Yankee."

Lord Silverbridge went out of the house in a very ill humour,--which
however left him when in the course of the afternoon he found himself
up at Maidenhead with Miss Boncassen. Miss Boncassen at any rate did
not laugh at him. And then she was so ple