‘Come upstairs into my own room,—­it is nicer than this,’ said Lady Mabel, and they went from the dining-room into a pretty little sitting-room with which Silverbridge was very well acquainted.  ‘Have you heard of Miss Boncassen?’ Mary said she had heard something of Miss Boncassen’s great beauty.  ’Everybody is talking about her.  Your brother met at Mrs Montacute Jones’s garden-party, and was made a conquest of instantly.’

‘I wasn’t made a conquest of at all,’ said Silverbridge.

’Then he ought to have been made a conquest of.  I should be if I were a man.  I think she is the loveliest person to look at and the nicest person to listen to that I ever came across.  We all feel that, as far as this season is concerned, we are cut out.  But we don’t mind it so much because she is a foreigner.’  Then just as she said this the door was opened and Frank Tregear was announced.

Everybody present there knew as well as does the reader, what was the connection between Tregear and Lady Mary Palliser.  And each knew that the other knew it.  It was therefore impossible for them not to feel themselves guilty among themselves.  The two lovers had not seen each other since they had been together in Italy.  Now they were brought face to face in this unexpected manner!  And nobody except Tregear was at first quite sure whether somebody had done something to arrange the meeting.  Mary might naturally suspect that Lady Mabel had done this in the interest of her friend Tregear, and Silverbridge could not but suspect that it was so.  Lady Mabel, who had never before met the other girl, could hardly refrain from thinking that there had been some underhand communication,—­and Miss Cassewary was clearly of the opinion that there had been some understanding.

Silverbridge was the first to speak.  ’Halloo, Tregear, I didn’t know that we were to see you.’

‘Nor I, that I should see you,’ said he.  Then of course there was a shaking of hands all round, in the course of which ceremony he came to Mary the last.  She gave him her hand, but had not a word to say to him.  ‘If I had known that you were here,’ he said, ’I should not have come; but I need hardly say how glad I am to see you,—­even in this way.’  Then the two girls were convinced that the meeting was accidental; but Miss Cass still had her doubts.

Conversation became at once very difficult.  Tregear seated himself near, but not very near, to Lady Mary, and made some attempt to talk to both the girls at once.  Lady Mabel plainly showed that she was not at her ease;—­whereas Mary seemed to be stricken dumb by the presence of her lover.  Silverbridge was so much annoyed by a feeling that this interview was a treason to his father, that he sat cudgelling his brain to think how he should bring it to an end.  Miss Cassewary was dumb-founded by the occasion.  She was the one elder in the company who ought to see that no wrong was committed.  She was not directly responsible to the Duke of Omnium, but she was thoroughly permeated by a feeling that it was her duty to take care that there should be no clandestine love meetings in Lord Grex’s house.  At last Silverbridge jumped up from his chair.  ‘Upon my word, Tregear, I think you had better go,’ said he.