though
cordially, at his inability to profit by it, without the most distant
allusion to the subject which the Colonel had brought on the tapis, or
even requesting his compliments to the Signoras Venosta and Cicogna,
she was more than put out, more than resentful,--she was deeply grieved.
Being, however, one of those gallant heroes of womankind who do not give
in at the first defeat, she began to doubt whether Frank had not rather
overstrained the delicacy which he said he had put into his "soundings."
He ought to have been more explicit. Meanwhile she resolved to call
on Isaura, and, without mentioning Graham's refusal of her invitation,
endeavour to ascertain whether the attachment which she felt persuaded
the girl secretly cherished for this recalcitrant Englishman were
something more than the first romantic fancy--whether it were
sufficiently deep to justify farther effort on Mrs. Morley's part to
bring it to a prosperous issue.

She found Isaura at home and alone; and, to do her justice, she
exhibited wonderful tact in the fulfilment of the task she had set
herself. Forming her judgment by manner and look--not words--she
returned home, convinced that she ought to seize the opportunity
afforded to her by Graham's letter. It was one to which she might very
naturally reply, and in that reply she might convey the object at her
heart more felicitously than the Colonel had done. "The cleverest man
is," she said to herself, "stupid compared to an ordinary woman in
the real business of life, which does not consist of fighting and
moneymaking."

Now there was one point she had ascertained by words in her visit to
Isaura--a point on which all might depend. She had asked Isaura when
and where she had seen Graham last; and when Isaura had given her that
information, and she learned it was on the eventful day on which Isaura
gave her consent to the publication of her MS. if approved by Savarin,
in the journal to be set up by the handsome-faced young author, she
leapt to the conclusion that Graham had been seized with no unnatural
jealousy, and was still under the illusive glamoury of that green-eyed
fiend. She was confirmed in this notion, not altogether an unsound one,
when asking with apparent carelessness, "And in that last interview, did
you see any change in Mr. Vane's manner, especially when he took leave?"

Isaura turned away pale, and involuntarily clasping her hands-as women
do when they would suppress pain-replied,