She was clearly conscious that
this was not the case; though she was glad her esteem for him had not
yet suffered the disturbance of her seeing reason to believe that Lady
Davenant had already meddled, according to her terrible threat. Laura
was surprised to learn afterwards that Selina had, in London parlance,
'thrown over' a dinner in order to make the evening at the opera fit in.
The dinner would have made her too late, and she didn't care about it:
she wanted to hear the whole opera.

The sisters dined together alone, without any question of Lionel, and on
alighting at Covent Garden found Mr. Wendover awaiting them in the
portico. His box proved commodious and comfortable, and Selina was
gracious to him: she thanked him for his consideration in not stuffing
it full of people. He assured her that he expected but one other
inmate--a gentleman of a shrinking disposition, who would take up no
room. The gentleman came in after the first act; he was introduced to
the ladies as Mr. Booker, of Baltimore. He knew a great deal about the
young lady they had come to listen to, and he was not so shrinking but
that he attempted to impart a portion of his knowledge even while she
was singing. Before the second act was over Laura perceived Lady
Ringrose in a box on the other side of the house, accompanied by a lady
unknown to her. There was apparently another person in the box, behind
the two ladies, whom they turned round from time to time to talk with.
Laura made no observation about Lady Ringrose to her sister, and she
noticed that Selina never resorted to the glass to look at her. That
Mrs. Berrington had not failed to see her, however, was proved by the
fact that at the end of the second act (the opera was Meyerbeer's
_Huguenots_) she suddenly said, turning to Mr. Wendover: 'I hope you
won't mind very much if I go for a short time to sit with a friend on
the other side of the house.' She smiled with all her sweetness as she
announced this intention, and had the benefit of the fact that an
apologetic expression is highly becoming to a pretty woman. But she
abstained from looking at her sister, and the latter, after a wondering
glance at her, looked at Mr. Wendover. She saw that he was
disappointed--even slightly wounded: he had taken some trouble to get
his box and it had been no small pleasure to him to see it graced by the
presence of a celebrated beauty. Now his situation collapsed if the
celebrated beauty were going to tra