‘Nonsense!  Look at the people here already.’

Fanny threw up her chin, and glanced back to see that Mankelow was following.  In his vexation, Horace was seized with a cough—­a cough several times repeated before he could check it.

‘Your cold’s no better,’ said Fanny.  ’You oughtn’t to have come out at night.’

‘It is better,’ he replied sharply.  ’That’s the first time I’ve coughed to-day.  Do you mean you would rather not have found me here?’

‘How silly you are!  People will hear what you’re saying.’

It was Fanny’s ‘first season,’ but not her first ‘at home.’  Mrs. Damerel seemed to be taking an affectionate interest in her, and had introduced her to several people.  Horace, gratified in the beginning, now suffered from jealousy; it tortured him to observe Fanny when she talked with men.  That her breeding was defective, mattered nothing in this composite world of pseudo-elegance.  Young Lord, who did not lack native intelligence, understood by this time that Mrs. Damerel and her friends were far from belonging to a high order of society; he saw vulgarity rampant in every drawing-room to which he was admitted, and occasionally heard things which startled his suburban prejudices.  But Fanny, in her wild enjoyment of these novel splendours, appeared to lose all self-control.  She flirted outrageously, and before his very eyes.  If he reproached her, she laughed at him; if he threatened to free himself, she returned a look which impudently bade him try.  Horace had all her faults by heart, and no longer tried to think that he respected her, or that, if he married such a girl, his life could possibly be a happy one; but she still played upon his passions, and at her beck he followed like a dog.

The hostess, Mrs. Dane, a woman who looked as if she had once been superior to the kind of life she now led, welcomed him with peculiar warmth, and in a quick confidential voice bade him keep near her for a few minutes.

’There’s some one I want to introduce you to—­some one I’m sure you will like to know.’

Obeying her, he soon lost sight of Fanny; but Mrs. Dane continued to talk, at intervals, in such a flattering tone, that his turbid emotions were soothed.  He had heard of the Chittles?  No?  They were very old friends of hers, said Mrs. Dane, and she particularly wanted him to know them.  Ah, here they came; mother and daughter.  Horace observed them.  Mrs. Chittle was a frail, worn, nervous woman, who must once have been comely; her daughter, a girl of two-and-twenty, had a pale, thin face of much sweetness and gentleness.  They seemed by no means at home in this company; but Mrs. Chittle, when she conversed, assumed a vivacious air; the daughter, trying to follow her example, strove vainly against an excessive bashfulness, and seldom raised her eyes.  Why he should be expected to pay special attention to these people, Horace was at a loss to understand; but Mrs. Chittle