By retiring from the world Mrs. Mountjoy had not intended to include such slight social relaxations as Mrs. Armitage’s party, for Harry on turning round encountered her talking to another Cheltenham lady.  He greeted her with his pleasantest smile, to which Mrs. Mountjoy did not respond quite so sweetly.  She had ever greatly feared Harry Annesley, and had to-day heard a story very much, as she thought, to his discredit.  “Is your daughter here?” asked Harry, with well-trained hypocrisy.  Mrs. Mountjoy could not but acknowledge that Florence was in the room, and then Harry passed on in pursuit of his quarry.

“Oh, Mr. Annesley, when did you come to Cheltenham?”

“As soon as I heard that Mrs. Armitage was going to have a party I began to think of coming immediately.”  Then an idea for the first time shot through Florence’s mind—­that her friend Mrs. Armitage was a woman devoted to intrigue.  “What dance have you disengaged?  I have something that I must tell you to-night.  You don’t mean to say that you will not give me one dance?” This was merely a lover’s anxious doubt on his part, because Florence had not at once replied to him.  “I am told that you are going away to Brussels.”

“Mamma is going on a visit to her brother-in-law.”

“And you with her?”

“Of course I shall go with mamma.”  All this had been said apart, while a fair-haired, lackadaisical young gentleman was standing twiddling his thumbs waiting to dance with Florence.  At last the little book from her waist was brought forth, and Harry’s name was duly inscribed.  The next dance was a quadrille, and he saw that the space after that was also vacant; so he boldly wrote down his name for both.  I almost think that Florence must have suspected that Harry Annesley was to be there that night, or why should the two places have been kept vacant?  “And now what is this,” he began, “about your going to Brussels?”

“Mamma’s brother is minister there, and we are just going on a visit.”

“But why now?  I am sure there is some especial cause.”  Florence would not say that there was no especial cause, so she could only repeat her assertion that they certainly were going to Brussels.  She herself was well aware that she was to be taken out of Harry’s way, and that something was expected to occur during this short month of her absence which might be detrimental to him,—­and to her also.  But this she could not tell, nor did she like to say that the plea given by her mother was the general state of the Scarborough affairs.  She did not wish to declare to this lover that that other lover was as nothing to her.  “And how long are you to be away?” asked Harry.

“We shall be a month with Sir Magnus; but mamma is talking of going on afterward to the Italian lakes.”

“Good heavens! you will not be back, I suppose, till ever so much after Christmas?”

“I cannot tell.  Nothing as yet has been settled.  I do not know that I ought to tell you anything about it.”  Harry at this moment looked up, and caught the eye of Mrs. Mountjoy, as she was standing in the door-way opposite.  Mrs. Mountjoy certainly looked as though no special communication as to Florence’s future movements ought to be made to Harry Annesley.