t. Then Lizzie, with a pretty eagerness, asked after Lady Fawn and
the girls, and her dear little friend Lucy Morris. Lizzie could be
very prettily eager when she pleased. She leaned forward her face
as she asked her questions, and threw back her loose lustrous lock
of hair, with her long lithe fingers covered with diamonds,--the
diamonds, these, which Sir Florian had really given her, or which she
had procured from Mr. Benjamin in the clever manner described in the
opening chapter. "They are, all quite well, thank you," said Lord
Fawn. "I believe Miss Morris is quite well, though she was a little
out of sorts last night."

"She is not ill, I hope," said Lizzie, bringing the lustrous lock
forward again.

"In her temper, I mean," said Lord Fawn.

"Indeed! I hope Miss Lucy is not forgetting herself. That would be
very sad, after the great kindness she has received." Lord Fawn said
that it would be very sad, and then put his hat down upon the floor.
It came upon Lizzie at that moment, as by a flash of lightning,--by
an electric message delivered to her intellect by that movement of
the hat,--that she might be sure of Lord Fawn if she chose to take
him. On Friday she might have been sure of Frank,--only that Lady
Linlithgow came in the way. But now she did not feel at all sure of
Frank. Lord Fawn was at any rate a peer. She had heard that he was a
poor peer,--but a peer, she thought, can't be altogether poor. And
though he was a stupid owl,--she did not hesitate to acknowledge to
herself that he was as stupid as an owl,--he had a position. He was
one of the Government, and his wife would, no doubt, be able to go
anywhere. It was becoming essential to her that she should marry.
Even though her husband should give up the diamonds, she would not
in such case incur the disgrace of surrendering them herself. She
would have kept them till she had ceased to be a Eustace. Frank had
certainly meant it on that Thursday afternoon;--but surely he would
have been in Mount Street before this if he had not changed his mind.
We all know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. "I have
been at Fawn Court once or twice," said Lizzie, with her sweetest
grace, "and I always think it a model of real family happiness."

"I hope you may be there very often," said Lord Fawn.

"Ah, I have no right to intrude myself often on your mother, Lord
Fawn."

There could hardly be a better opening than this for him had he
chosen to accept it