Once or twice Lord Popplecourt had a little conversation with Lady Cantrip.  ‘Dear girl!’ said her ladyship.  ’She is so little given to seeing admiration.’

‘I dare say.’

’Girls are so different, Lord Popplecourt.  With some of them it seems that a gentleman need have no trouble in explaining what it is that he wishes.’

‘I don’t think Lady Mary is like that at all.’

’Not in the least.  Anyone who addresses her must be prepared to explain himself fully.  Nor ought he to hope to get much encouragement at first.  I do not think that Lady Mary will bestow her heart till she is sure she can give it with safety.’  There was an amount of falsehood in this which was proof at any rate of very strong friendship on the part of Lady Cantrip.

After a few days Lady Mary became more intimate with the American and his daughter than with any others of the party.  Perhaps she liked to talk about Scandinavian poets, of whom, Mr Boncassen was so fond.  Perhaps she felt sure that her transatlantic friend would not make love to her.  Perhaps it was that she yielded to the various allurements of Miss Boncassen.  Miss Boncassen saw the Duke of Omnium for the first time at Custins, and there had the first opportunity of asking herself how such a man as that would receive from his son and heir such an announcement as Lord Silverbridge would have to make him should she at the end of three months accept his offer.  She was quite aware that Lord Silverbridge need not repeat his offer unless he were so pleased.  But she thought that he would come again.  He had so spoken that she was sure of his love; and had so spoken as to obtain hers.  Yes;—­she was sure that she loved him.  She had never seen anything like him before;—­ so glorious in his beauty, so gentle in his manhood, so powerful and yet so little imperious, so great in condition, and yet so little confident in his own greatness, so bolstered up with external advantages, and so little apt to trust anything but his own heart and his own voice.  She was glad he was what he was.  She counted at their full value all his natural advantages.  To be an English Duchess!  Oh—­yes; her ambition understood it all!  But she loved him, because in the expression of his love no hint had fallen from him of the greatness of the benefits which he could confer upon her.  Yes, she would like to be a Duchess; but not to be a Duchess would she become the wife of a man who should begin his courtship by assuming a superiority.

Now the chances of society had brought her into the company of his nearest friends.  She was in the house with his father and with his sister.  Now and again the Duke spoke a few words to her, and always did so with a polite courtesy.  But she was sure that the Duke had heard nothing of his son’s courtship.  And she was equally sure that the matter had not reached Lady Mary’s ears.  She perceived that the Duke and her father would often converse together.  Mr Boncassen would discuss