to it now; and Adela especially did when, after a ringing hit to Freshfield (which the Tinleys might also take to their own bosoms), she said in an undertone, “What is there between C. and—?” Surprised by this astonishing vigilance and power of thinking below the surface while she performed above it, Adela incautiously turned her face toward the meditative baronet, and was humiliated by Arabella’s mute indication of contempt for her coming answer.  This march across the lawn to the lighted windows of Besworth was the culmination of Brookfield’s joy, and the crown for which it had striven; though for how short a term it was to be worn was little known.  Was it not a very queenly sphere of Fine Shades and Nice Feelings that Brookfield had realized?

In Arabella’s conscience lay a certain reproach of herself for permitting the “vice of a lower circle” to cling to her—­viz., she had still betrayed a stupid hostility to the Tinleys:  she had rejoiced to see them incapable of mixing with any but their own set, and thus be stamped publicly for what they were.  She had struggled to repress it, and yet, continually, her wits were in revolt against her judgement.  Perhaps one reason was that Albert Tinley had haunted her steps at an early part of the day; and Albert—­a sickening City young man, “full of insolence, and half eyeglass,” according to Freshfield—­had once ventured to propose for her.

The idea that the Tinleys strove to catch at her skirts made Arabella spiteful.  Up to the threshold of Besworth, Freshfield, Mr. Powys, Tracy, and Arabella kept the wheel of a dazzling run of small-talk, throwing intermittent sparks.  Laura Tinley would press up, apparently to hear, but in reality (as all who knew her could see) with the object of being a rival representative of her sex in this illustrious rare encounter of divine intelligences.  “You are anxious to know?” said Arabella, hesitatingly.

“To know, dear?” echoed Laura.

“There was, I presumed, something you did not hear.”  Arabella was half ashamed of the rudeness to which her antagonism to Laura’s vulgarity forced her.

“Oh!  I hear everything,” Laura assured her.

“Indeed!” said Arabella.  “By the way, who conducts you?” (Laura was on Edward Burley’s arm.) “Oh! will you go to”—­such and such an end of the table.  “And if, Lady Gosstre, I may beg of you to do me the service to go there also,” was added aloud; and lower, but quite audibly, “Mr. Pericles will have music, so there can be no talking.”  This, with the soupcon of a demi-shrug; “You will not suffer much” being implied.  Laura said to herself, “I am not a fool.”  A moment after, Arabella was admitting in her own mind, as well as Fine Shades could interpret it, that she was.  On entering the dining-hall, she beheld two figures seated at the point whither Laura was led by her partner.  These were Mrs. Chump and Mr. Pole, with champagne glasses in their hands.  Arabella was pushed on by the inexorable crowd of hungry people behind.