Mrs Roby was beside herself,--not all with joy.That feeling would come afterwards when she would boast to her friends of her new acquaintance.At present there was the embarrassment of not quite knowing how to behave herself.The Duchess bowed from her seat, and smiled sweetly,--as she had learned to smile since her husband had become Prime Minister.Mrs Roby curtsied, and then remembered that in these days only housemaids ought to curtsey.
'Anything to our Mr Roby?' said the Duchess, continuing her smile,--'ours as was till yesterday at least.' This she said in an absurd wail of mock sorrow.
'My brother-in-law, your Grace,' said Mrs Roby delighted.
'Oh indeed.And what does Mr Roby think about it, I wonder? But I dare say you have found, Mrs Roby, that when a crisis comes,--a real crisis,--the ladies are told nothing.I have.'
'I don't think, your Grace, that Mr Roby ever divulges political secrets.'
'Doesn't he indeed! What a dull man your brother-in-law must be to live with,--that is as politician! Good-bye, Mrs Lopez.You must come and see me and let me come to you again.I hope, you know,--I hope the time may come when things may once more be bright with you.' These last words she murmured almost in a whisper, as she held the hand of the woman she wished to befriend.Then she bowed to Mrs Roby, and left the room.
'What was it she said to you?' asked Mrs Roby.
'Nothing in particular, Aunt Harriet.'
'She seems to be very friendly.What made her come?'
'She wrote to me some time ago to say she would call.'
'But why?'
'I cannot tell you.I don't know.Don't ask me aunt, about things that are passed.You cannot do it without wounding me.'
'I don't want to wound you, Emily, but I really think it is nonsense.She is a very nice woman;--thought I don't think she ought to have said that Mr Roby is dull.Did Mr Wharton know that she was coming?'
'He knew that she said she would come,' replied Emily very sternly, so that Mrs Roby found herself compelled to pass on to some other subject.Mrs Roby had heard the wish expressed that something 'once more might be bright', and when she got home told her husband that she was sure that Emily Lopez was going to marry Arthur Fletcher.'And why the d--shouldn't she?' said Dick.'And that poor man destroying himself not more than twelve months ago!
I couldn't do it,' said Mrs Roby.'I don't mean to give you the chance,' said Dick.
The Duchess when she went away suffered under a sense of failure.
She had intended to bring about some sort of crisis of female tenderness in which she might have rushed into future hopes and joyous anticipations, and with the freedom which will come from ebullitions of feeling, have told the widow that the peculiar circumstances of her position would not only justify her in marrying this other man but absolutely called upon her to do it.
Unfortunately she had failed in her attempt to bring the interview to a condition in which this would have been possible, and while she was still making the attempt that odious aunt had come in.'I have been on my mission,' she said to Mrs Finn afterwards.
'Have you done any good?'
'I don't think I've done any harm.Women, you know, are so very different.There are some who would delight to have an opportunity of opening their hearts to a Duchess, and who might almost be talked into anything in an ecstasy.'
'Hardly women of the best sort, Lady Glen.'
'Not of the best sort.But then one doesn't come across the very best, very often.But that kind of thing does have an effect, and as I only wanted to do good, I wish she had been one of the sort for the occasion.'
'Was she--offended?'
'Oh dear, no.You don't suppose I attacked her with a husband at the first.Indeed, I didn't attack her at all.She didn't give me an opportunity.Such a Niobe you never saw.'
'Was she weeping?'
'Not actual tears, but her gown, and her cap, and her strings were weeping.Her voice wept, and her hair, and her nose, and her mouth.Don't you know that look of subdued mourning? And yet they say that that man is dying for love.How beautiful it is to see that there is such a thing as constancy left in the world.'
When she got home she found that her husband had just returned from the old Duke's house, where he had met Mr Monk, Mr Gresham, and Lord Cantrip.'It's all settled at last,' he said cheerfully.
