’I hope not, Lady Milborough, because we are all especially fond of him.’  This was said with so much of purpose, that poor, dear old Lady Milborough was stopped in her good work.  She knew well the terrible strait to which Augustus Poole had been brought with his wife, although nobody supposed that Poole’s wife had ever entertained a wrong thought in her pretty little heart.  Nevertheless he had been compelled to break up his establishment, and take his wife to Naples, because this horrid Colonel would make himself at home in Mrs Poole’s drawing-room in Knightsbridge.  Augustus Poole, with courage enough to take any man by the beard, had taking by the beard been possible, had found it impossible to dislodge the Colonel.  He could not do so without making a row which would have been disgraceful to himself and injurious to his wife; and therefore he had taken Mrs Poole to Naples.  Lady Milborough knew the whole story, and thought that she foresaw that the same thing was about to happen in the drawing-room in Curzon Street.  When she attempted to say a word to the wife, she found herself stopped.  She could not go on in that quarter after the reception with which the beginning of her word had been met.  But perhaps she might succeed better with the husband.  After all, her friendship was with the Trevelyan side, and not with the Rowleys.

‘My dear Louis,’ she said, ’I want to speak a word to you.  Come here.’  And then she led him into a distant corner, Mrs Trevelyan watching her all the while, and guessing why her husband was thus carried away.  ’I just want to give you a little hint, which I am sure I believe is quite unnecessary,’ continued Lady Milborough.  Then she paused, but Trevelyan would not speak.  She looked into his face, and saw that it was black.  But the man was the only child of her dearest friend, and she persevered.  ’Do you know I don’t quite like that Colonel Osborne coming so much to your house.’  The face before her became still blacker, but still the man said nothing.  ’I dare say it is a prejudice on my part, but I have always disliked him.  I think he is a dangerous friend—­what I call a snake in the grass.  And though Emily’s high good sense, and love for you, and general feelings on such a subject, are just what a husband must desire—­Indeed, I am quite sure that the possibility of anything wrong has never entered into her head.  But it is the very purity of her innocence which makes the danger.  He is a bad man, and I would just say a word to her, if I were you, to make her understand that his coming to her of a morning is not desirable.  Upon my word, I believe there is nothing he likes so much as going about and making mischief between men and their wives.’