He did not see the bitter smile with which she turned away, nor the pallor that crept even to her lips.  Once again in his life Lord Arleigh was completely deceived.

A week afterward he received “a note in Philippa’s handwriting it said, simply: 

     “Dear Norman:  You were good enough to plead the duke’s cause.  When
     you meet him next, ask him if he has anything to tell you.

     Philippa L’Estrange.”

What the Duke of Hazlewood had to tell was that Miss L’Estrange had promised to be his wife, and that the marriage was to take place in August.  He prayed Lord Arleigh to be present as his “best man” on the occasion.

On the same evening Lady Peters and Miss L’Estrange sat in the drawing-room at Verdun House, alone.  Philippa had been very restless.  She had been walking to and fro; she had opened her piano and closed it; she had taken up volume after volume and laid it down again, when suddenly her eyes fell on a book prettily bound in crimson and gold, which Lady Peters had been reading.

“What book is that?” she asked, suddenly.

“Lord Lytton’s ‘Lady of Lyons,’” replied Lady Peters.

Philippa raised it, looked through it, and then, with a strange smile and a deep sigh, laid it down.

“At last,” she said—­“I have found it at last!”

“Found what, my dear?” asked Lady Peters, looking up.

“Something I have been searching for,” replied Philippa, as she quitted the room, still with the strange smile on her lips.

Chapter XV.

The great event of the year succeeding was the appearance of the Duchess of Hazlewood.  Miss L’Estrange the belle and the heiress, had been very popular; her Grace of Hazlewood was more popular still.  She was queen of fashionable London.  At her mansion all the most exclusive met.  She had resolved upon giving her life to society, upon cultivating it, upon making herself its mistress and queen.  She succeeded.  She became essentially a leader of society.  To belong to the Duchess of Hazlewood’s “set” was to be the creme de la creme.  The beautiful young duchess had made up her mind upon two things.  The first was that she would be a queen of society; the second, that she would reign over such a circle as had never been gathered together before.  She would have youth, beauty, wit, genius; she would not trouble about wealth.  She would admit no one who was not famous for some qualification or other—­some grace of body or mind—­some talent or great gift.  The house should be open to talent of all kinds, but never open to anything commonplace.  She would be the encourager of genius, the patroness of the fine arts, the friend of all talent.

It was a splendid career that she marked out for herself, and she was the one woman in England especially adapted for it The only objection to it was that while she gave every scope to imagination—­while she provided for all intellectual wants and needs—­she made no allowance for the affections; they never entered into her calculations.