"He is in love with the girl, is he?" she murmured; "and she with him. Why, I saw it in their guilty, stolen looks; her accents betrayed her when she spoke. It is not enough that she must cross me in the House, but she would rob me of a husband. Not yet, Lady Carlyon-not yet." . . . . She looked at herself again. "Oh, that I could be, again, what I was at one-and-twenty! It is true, as Julia said, that I have nothing to give the boy in return. for what I ask of him-his affection. I am an old woman-sixty-five years of age. I suppose I have had my share of love. Harry loved mé when I was young-because I was young. Poor Harry! I did not then know how much he loved me, nor the value of a man's heart. Well... as for the other two, they loved me after their fashion-but it was not like Harry's love; they said they loved me, and in return I gave them all they wanted. They were happy, and I had to be contented." She mused in

silence for a time; then she roused herself with an effort. "What then? Let them talk. I

am the Duchess of Dunstanburgh. She shall have her whim; she shall have her darling, and if he chooses to sulk, she will punish him until he smiles again. Wait, my lord, only wait till you are safe on the Northumberland coast, and in my castle of Dunstanburgh."

97

CHAPTER V.

IN THE SEASON.

WOMEN, especially politicians, are (or rather were, until the Revolt) accustomed to the publicity of photographs, illustrated papers, paragraphs in society papers, and to the curiosity with which people stare after them whereever they show themselves. They used to like it. Men, who were, on the other hand, taught to respect modest retirement and that graceful obscurity becoming to the masculine hand which carries out the orders of the female brain, shrank from such notoriety. It was a curious sensation for young Lord Chester to feel, rather than to see and to hear, the people pointing him out, and talking about him.

G

"Courage" whispered the Professor. "You will have to encounter a great deal more curiosity than this before long. Above all, do not show by any sign or change of expression that you are conscious of their staring."

This was at the Royal Academy. The rooms were crowded with the usual mob, for it was early in June. There were the country ladies -rosy, fat, and jolly-catalogue and pencil in hand, dragging after them husbands, brothers, sons - ruddy, stalwart fellows - who wearily followed from room to room-ignorant of art, and yet unwilling to be thought ignorant,— flocking to any picture which seemed to contain a story or a subject likely to interest them, such as a horse, or a race, or a match of some kind, and turning away with a half-conscious feeling that they ought to rejoice in not liking the much-praised picture, instead of being ashamed of it, so unlike a horse did they find it, so unfaithful a representation of figure or of action. There were artistic ladies, with their new fashion of dress and pale languid airs, listlessly ex

changing the commonplace of the fashionable school; there were professional ladies, lawyers, and doctors," doing" all the rooms between two consultations in an hour; there were schoolgirls from Harrow, yawning over the Exhibition, which it was a duty they owed to themselves to see early in the season, unless they could get tickets, which they all ardently desired, for the fortnight's private view; there were shoals of men in little parties of two and four, escorted by some good-natured uncle or elderly cousin. The crowd squeezed round the fashionable pictures; they passed heedlessly before pictures of which nobody talked; they all tried to look critical; those who pretended to culture searched after strange adjectives; those who did not, said everything was pretty, and yawned furtively; the ladies whispered remarks to each other, with a quick nod of intelligence; and they received the feeble criticism of the men with the deferent smile due to politeness, or a half-concealed contempt.

This year there were more than the usual number of pictures-in fact, the whole of the