difference, that was all.

CHAPTER XXXV.

'ALL FANCY, PRIDE, AND FICKLE MAIDENHOOD.'

The return to Arlington Street meant a return to the ceaseless whirl of
gaiety. Even at Rood Hall life had been as near an approach to perpetual
motion as one could hope for in this world; but the excitement and the
hurrying and scampering in Berkshire had a rustic flavour; there were
moments that were almost repose, a breathing space between the blue
river and the blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields and
hanging woods, the plashing of waters, and the song of the lark. But in
London the very atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation; the
freshness was gone from the verdure of the parks; the glory of the
rhododendrons had faded; the Green Park below Lady Kirkbank's mansion
was baked and rusty; the towers of the Houses of Parliament yonder were
dimly seen in a mist of heat. London air tasted of smoke and dust,
vibrated with the incessant roll of carriages, and the trampling of
multitudinous feet.

There are women of rank who can take the London season quietly, and live
their own lives in the midst of the whirl and the riot--women for whom
that squirrel-like circulation round and round the fashionable wheel has
no charm--women who only receive people they like, only go into society
that is congenial. But Lady Kirkbank was not one of these. The advance
of age made her only more keen in the pursuit of pleasure. She would
have abandoned herself to despair had the glass over the mantelpiece in
her boudoir ceased to be choked and littered with cards--had her book of
engagements shown a blank page. Happily there were plenty of people--if
not all of them the best people--who wanted Sir George and Lady Kirkbank
at their parties. The gentleman was sporting and harmless, the lady was
good-natured, and just sufficiently eccentric to be amusing without
degenerating into a bore. And this year she was asked almost everywhere,
for the sake of the beauty who went under her wing. Lesbia had been as a
pearl of price to her chaperon, from a social point of view; and now
that she was engaged to Horace Smithson she was likely to be even more
valuable.

Mr. Smithson had promised Lady Kirkbank, sportively as it were, and upon
the impulse of the moment, as he would have offered to wager a dozen of
gloves, that were he so happy as to win her _protegee's_ hand he would
find her an investment for, say, a thousand, which would br