not misunderstand it. And yet--it
is only that before you leave here--whatever be the circumstances under
which you leave--you will see me for five minutes.'

Sir George stared, bowed, and muttered 'Too happy.' Then observing, or
fancying he observed, that she was anxious to be rid of him, he took his
leave and went into the house.

For a man who had descended the stairs an hour before, hipped to the
last degree, with his mind on a pistol, it must be confessed that he
went up with a light step; albeit, in a mighty obfuscation, as Dr.
Johnson might have put it. A kinder smile, more honest eyes he swore he
had never seen, even in a plain face. Her very blushes, of which the
memory set his _blase_ blood dancing to a faster time, were a character
in themselves. But--he wondered. She had made such advances, been so
friendly, dropped such hints--he wondered. He was fresh from the
masquerades, from Mrs. Cornely's assemblies, Lord March's converse, the
Chudleigh's fantasies; the girl had made an appointment--he wondered.

For all that, one thing was unmistakable. Life, as he went up the
stairs, had taken on another and a brighter colour; was fuller, brisker,
more generous. From a spare garret with one poor casement it had grown
in an hour into a palace, vague indeed, but full of rich vistas and rosy
distances and quivering delights. The corridor upstairs, which at his
going out had filled him with distaste--there were boots in it, and
water-cans--was now the Passage Beautiful; for he might meet her there.
The day which, when he rose, had lain before him dull and
monotonous--since Lord Chatham was too ill to see him, and he had no one
with whom to game--was now full-furnished with interest, and hung with
recollections--recollections of conscious eyes and the sweetest lips in
the world. In a word, Julia had succeeded in that which she had set
herself to do. Sir George might wonder. He was none the less in love.

CHAPTER XIII

A SPOILED CHILD

Julia was right in fancying that she saw Lady Dunborough's face at one
of the windows in the south-east corner of the house. Those windows
commanded both the Marlborough High Street and the Salisbury road,
welcomed alike the London and the Salisbury coach, overlooked the
loungers at the entrance to the town, and supervised most details of the
incoming and outgoing worlds. Lady Dunborough had not been up and about
half-an-hour before she remarked these advantages. In an hour her
la