It was nearly ten o’clock when the gentlemen came into the room and then it was that the Duchess,—­Arabella’s aunt,—­must find the opportunity of giving Lord Rufford the hint of which the Duke had spoken.  He was to leave Mistletoe on the morrow and might not improbably do so early.  Of all women she was the steadiest, the most tranquil, the least abrupt in her movements.  She could not pounce upon a man, and nail him down, and say what she had to say, let him be as unwilling as he might to hear it.  At last, however, seeing Lord Rufford standing alone,—­he had then just left the sofa on which Arabella was still lying,—­without any apparent effort she made her way up to his side.  “You had rather a long day,” she said.

“Not particularly, Duchess.”

“You had to come home so far!”

“About the average distance.  Did you think it a hard day, Maurice?” Then he called to his aid a certain Lord Maurice St. John, a hard-riding and hard-talking old friend of the Trefoil family who gave the Duchess a very clear account of all the performance, during which Lord Rufford fell into an interesting conversation with Mrs. Mulready, the wife of the neighbouring bishop.

After that the Duchess made another attempt.  “Lord Rufford,” she said, “we should be so glad if you would come back to us the first week in February.  The Prices will be here and the Mackenzies, and—.”

“I am pledged to stay with my sister till the fifth, and on the sixth Surbiton and all his lot come to me.  Battersby, is it not the sixth that you and Surbiton come to Rufford?”

“I rather think it is,” said Battersby.

“I wish it were possible.  I like Mistletoe so much.  It’s so central.”

“Very well for hunting;—­is it not, Lord Rufford?” But that horrid Captain Battersby did not go out of the way.

“I wonder whether Lady Chiltern would do me a favour,” said Lord Rufford stepping across the room in search of that lady.  He might be foolish, but when the Duchess of Omnium declared him to be the silliest man of the day I think she used a wrong epithet.  The Duchess was very patient and intended to try again, but on that evening she got no opportunity.

Captain Battersby was Lord Rufford’s particular friend on this occasion and had come over with him from Mr. Surbiton’s house.  “Bat,” he said as they were sitting close to each other in the smoking-room that night, “I mean to make an early start tomorrow.”

“What;—­to get to Surbiton’s?”

“I’ve got something to do on the way.  I want to look at a horse at Stamford.”

“I’ll be off with you.”

“No;—­don’t do that.  I’ll go in my own cart.  I’ll make my man get hold of my groom and manage it somehow.  I can leave my things and you can bring them.  Only say to-morrow that I was obliged to go.”

“I understand.”

“Heard something, you know, and all that kind of thing.  Make my apologies to the Duchess.  In point of fact I must be in Stamford at ten.”