“You are going to the house of the worst reprobate in all England,” said Lady Baldock.

“What;—­dear old Lord Brentford, whom papa loved so well!”

“I mean Lord Chiltern, who, only last year,—­murdered a man!”

“That is not true, aunt.”

“There is worse than that,—­much worse.  He is always—­tipsy, and always gambling, and always—­ But it is quite unfit that I should speak a word more to you about such a man as Lord Chiltern.  His name ought never to be mentioned.”

“Then why did you mention it, aunt?”

Lady Baldock’s process of jumping upon her niece,—­in which I think the aunt had generally the worst of the exercise,—­went on for some time, but Violet of course carried her point.

“If she marries him there will be an end of everything,” said Lady Baldock to her daughter Augusta.

“She has more sense than that, mamma,” said Augusta.

“I don’t think she has any sense at all,” said Lady Baldock;—­“not in the least.  I do wish my poor sister had lived;—­I do indeed.”

Lord Chiltern was now in the room with Violet,—­immediately upon that conversation between Violet and his sister as to the expediency of Violet becoming his wife.  Indeed his entrance had interrupted the conversation before it was over.  “I am so glad to see you, Miss Effingham,” he said.  “I came in thinking that I might find you.”

“Here I am, as large as life,” she said, getting up from her corner on the sofa and giving him her hand.  “Laura and I have been discussing the affairs of the nation for the last two days, and have nearly brought our discussion to an end.”  She could not help looking, first at his eye and then at his hand, not as wanting evidence to the truth of the statement which his sister had made, but because the idea of a drunkard’s eye and a drunkard’s hand had been brought before her mind.  Lord Chiltern’s hand was like the hand of any other man, but there was something in his eye that almost frightened her.  It looked as though he would not hesitate to wring his wife’s neck round, if ever he should be brought to threaten to do so.  And then his eye, like the rest of him, was red.  No;—­she did not think that she could ever bring herself to marry him.  Why take a venture that was double-dangerous, when there were so many ventures open to her, apparently with very little of danger attached to them?  “If it should ever be said that I loved him, I would do it all the same,” she said to herself.

“If I did not come and see you here, I suppose that I should never see you,” said he, seating himself.  “I do not often go to parties, and when I do you are not likely to be there.”

“We might make our little arrangements for meeting,” said she, laughing.  “My aunt, Lady Baldock, is going to have an evening next week.”

“The servants would be ordered to put me out of the house.”

“Oh no.  You can tell her that I invited you.”