’Do not tell her so, Mr Glascock.  She has gone now with her father to Siena.  We think that he is there, with the boy or, at least, that he may be heard of there.  And you you are living here?’ Mr Glascock said that he was living between Naples and Florence, going occasionally to Naples, a place that he hated, to see his father, and coming back at intervals to the capital.  Nora sat by, and hardly spoke a word.  She was nicely dressed, with an exquisite little bonnet, which had been bought as they came through Paris; and Lady Rowley, with natural pride, felt that if he was ever in love with her child, that love must come back upon him now.  American girls, she had been told, were hard, and dry, and sharp, and angular.  She had seen some at the Mandarins, with whom she thought it must be impossible that any Englishman should be in love.  There never, surely, had been an American girl like her Nora.  ‘Are you fond of pictures, Mr Glascock?’ she asked.  Mr Glascock was not very fond of pictures, and thought that he was rather tired of them.  What was he fond of?  Of sitting at home and doing nothing.  That was his reply, at least; and a very unsatisfactory reply it was, as Lady Rowley could hardly propose that they should come and sit and do nothing with him.  Could he have been lured into churches or galleries, Nora might have been once more thrown into his company.  Then Lady Rowley took courage, and asked him whether he knew the Spaldings.  They were going to Mrs Spalding’s that very evening, she and her daughters.  Mr Glascock replied that he did know the Spaldings, and that he also should be at their house.  Lady Rowley thought that she discovered something like a blush about his cheekbones and brow, as he made his answer.  Then he left them, giving his hand to Nora as he went but there was nothing in his manner to justify the slightest hope.

‘I don’t think he is nice at all,’ said Lucy.

‘Don’t be so foolish, Lucy,’ said Lady Rowley angrily.

‘I think he is very nice,’ said Nora.  ’He was only talking nonsense when he said that he liked to sit still and do nothing.  He is not at all an idle man; at least I am told so.’

‘But he is as old as Methuselah,’ said Lucy.

‘He is between thirty and forty,’ said Lady Rowley.

‘Of course we know that from the peerage.’  Lady Rowley, however, was wrong.  Had she consulted the peerage, she would have seen that Mr Glascock was over forty.

Nora, as soon as she was alone and could think about it all, felt quite sure that Mr Glascock would never make her another offer.  This ought not to have caused her any sorrow, as she was very well aware that she would not accept him, should he do so.  Yet, perhaps, there was a moment of some feeling akin to disappointment.  Of course she would not have accepted him.  How could she?  Her faith was so plighted to Hugh Stanbury that she would be a by-word among women for ever, were she to be so false.  And, as she told herself, she had not the slightest feeling of affection for Mr Glascock.  It was quite out of the question, and a matter simply for speculation.  Nevertheless it would have been a very grand thing to be Lady Peterborough, and she almost regretted that she had a heart in her bosom.