To-night, however, there should be no more fencing; of that he was thoroughly resolved.  He would be eloquent and sustained, impassioned, and, if necessary, humble—­but, above all, perfectly direct; he would brook no faltering, feminine evasions; would insist on an answer, and on a right answer too, pointing out, with the close reasoning acquired in his profession, the superb propriety of the match.  And he believed that she would be convinced.  Was it not half of her attraction that she was a woman of intelligence, not a silly school-girl, who flirted and danced?

In spite of his self-esteem, however, he was not unwise enough to feel sure of the result.  Were not all women, even the best of them, notoriously perverse?  And there was always, conceivably, that inopportune third party, a preferred rival, to be counted with, who might have been first on the field.

Considering these things, he allowed himself a glass of chartreuse with his coffee, and the unwonted luxury of a cigar, over which he lingered, growing more nervous as its white ash lengthened and the occasion drew near.  Yet he could remind himself at last that—­at any rate, to his knowledge—­there was no one else whose pretensions the lady preferred, since Rainham, the man whom he had marked as dangerous, was socially damned, and no longer to be feared.

It was very nearly eleven before he reached the house to which he had been invited, and where he found a very brilliant party already in progress.  The house was chiefly a legal and political one, although there seemed to be a fair leaven of literary and artistic celebrities among the more solid reputations; and for some time he was engrossed by various of his Parliamentary acquaintances, who questioned and encouraged him.  Two or three had newly arrived from the House, where an important division had just been declared; and Charles listened with some impatience to their account of it, gazing absently, over their heads, at the maze of pretty toilettes, which made an agreeable frou-frou over the polished floor, although the debate had been upon a question in which he was warmly interested.

He escaped from them at last with a murmured apology, an intimation that he wished to find somebody, and made his way slowly into the adjoining room, from which the strains of waltz music floated in, and where they danced.  His friends found his demeanour noticeable, and were inclined to wonder with some amusement, knowing his habitual equanimity, that the vacancy at North Mallow should have undermined it.  When he entered the ball-room he stopped for a moment, flushing a little.  The first person he had seen, between the heads of the floating couples, was Lady Garnett, on a little raised seat at the further end of the large room, engaged in an animated conversation with an ambassador.  He realized quickly that she would not have come alone.