And even then she had been watched.  That juxtaposition at the dinner-table had come of chance and had been caused by Lord Rufford’s late arrival.  Old Sir Jeffrey should have been her neighbour, with the clergyman on the other side, an arrangement which Her Grace had thought safe with reference to the rights of the Minister to Patagonia.  The Duchess, though she was at some distance down the table, had seen that her niece and Lord Rufford were intimate, and remembered immediately what had been said up-stairs.  They could not have talked as they were then talking,—­ sometimes whispering as the Duchess could perceive very well,—­ unless there had been considerable former intimacy.  She began gradually to understand various things;—­why Arabella Trefoil had been so anxious to come to Mistletoe just at this time, why she had behaved so unlike her usual self before Lord Rufford’s arrival, and why she had been so unwilling to have Mr. Morton invited.  The Duchess was in her way a clever woman and could see many things.  She could see that though her niece might be very anxious to marry Lord Rufford, Lord Rufford might indulge himself in a close intimacy with the girl without any such intention on his part.  And, as far as the family was concerned, she would have been quite contented with the Morton alliance.  She would have asked Morton now only that it would be impossible that he should come in time to be of service.  Had she been consulted in the first instance she would have put her veto on that drive to the meet:  but she had heard nothing about it until Lady Chiltern had said that she would go.  The Duchess of Omnium had since declared that she also would go, and there were to be two carriages.  But still it never occurred to the Duchess that Arabella intended to hunt.  Nor did Arabella intend that she should know it till the morning came.

The Friday was very dull.  The hunting men of course had gone before Arabella came down to breakfast.  She would willingly have got up at seven to pour out Lord Rufford’s tea, had that been possible; but, as it was, she strolled into the breakfast room at half-past ten.  She could see by her aunt’s eye and hear in her voice that she was in part detected; and that she would do herself no further service by acting the good girl; and she therefore resolutely determined to listen to no more twaddle.  She read a French novel which she had brought with her, and spent as much of the day as she could in her bedroom.  She did not see Lord Rufford before dinner, and at dinner sat between Sir Jeffrey and an old gentleman out of Stamford who dined at Mistletoe that evening.  “We’ve had no such luck to-night,” Lord Rufford said to her in the drawing-room.

“The old dragon took care of that,” replied Arabella.

“Why should the old dragon think that I’m dangerous?”

“Because—­; I can’t very well tell you why, but I dare say you know.”

“And do you think I am dangerous?”