He was still thinking of all this when he was accosted by Mrs Spalding.  ‘Are you going to dear Lady Banbury’s to-morrow?’ she asked.  Lady Banbury was the wife of the English Minister.

‘I suppose I shall be there in the course of the evening.’

’How very nice she is; is she not?  I do like Lady Banbury—­so soft, and gentle, and kind.’

‘One of the pleasantest old ladies I know,’ said Mr Glascock.

‘It does not strike you so much as it does me,’ said Mrs Spalding, with one of her sweetest smiles.  ’The truth is, we all value what we have not got.  There are no Lady Banburys in our country, and therefore we think the more of them when we meet them here.  She is talking of going to Rome for the Carnival, and has asked Caroline to go with her.  I am so pleased to find that my dear girl is such a favourite.’

Mr Glascock immediately told himself that he saw the hook.  If he were to be fished for by this American aunt as he had been fished for by English mothers, all his pleasure in the society of Caroline Spalding would be at once over.  It would be too much, indeed, if in this American household he were to find the old vices of an aristocracy superadded to young republican sins!  Nevertheless Lady Banbury was, as he knew well, a person whose opinion about young people was supposed to be very good.  She noticed those only who were worthy of notice; and to have been taken by the hand by Lady Banbury was acknowledged to be a passport into good society.  If Caroline Spalding was in truth going to Rome with Lady Banbury, that fact was in itself a great confirmation of Mr Glascock’s good opinion of her.  Mrs Spalding had perhaps understood this; but had not understood that having just hinted that it was so, she should have abstained from saying a word more about her dear girl.  Clever and well-practised must, indeed, be the hand of the fisherwoman in matrimonial waters who is able to throw her fly without showing any glimpse of the hook to the fish for whom she angles.  Poor Mrs Spalding, though with kindly instincts towards her niece she did on this occasion make some slight attempt at angling, was innocent of any concerted plan.  It seemed to her to be so natural to say a good word in praise of her niece to the man whom she believed to be in love with her niece.

Caroline and Mr Glascock did not meet each other again till late in the evening, and just as he was about to take his leave.  As they came together each of them involuntarily looked round to see whether Miss Petrie was near.  Had she been there nothing would have been said beyond the shortest farewell greeting.  But Miss Petrie was afar off, electrifying some Italian by the vehemence of her sentiments, and the audacious volubility of a language in which all arbitrary restrictions were ignored.  ‘Are you going?’ she asked.

’Well I believe I am.  Since I saw you last I’ve encountered Miss Petrie again, and I’m rather depressed.’