"Lord Rufford is about the silliest man of his day," she said
afterwards to the same lady; "but there is one thing which I do not
think even he is silly enough to do."
It was nearly ten o'clock when the gentlemen came into the room and
then it was that the Duchess,--Arabella's aunt,--must find the
opportunity of giving Lord Rufford the hint of which the Duke had
spoken. He was to leave Mistletoe on the morrow and might not
improbably do so early. Of all women she was the steadiest, the
most tranquil, the least abrupt in her movements. She could not
pounce upon a man, and nail him down, and say what she had to say,
let him be as unwilling as he might to hear it. At last, however,
seeing Lord Rufford standing alone,--he had then just left the sofa
on which Arabella was still lying,--without any apparent effort she
made her way up to his side. "You had rather a long day," she said.
"Not particularly, Duchess."
"You had to come home so far!"
"About the average distance. Did you think it a hard day, Maurice?"
Then he called to his aid a certain Lord Maurice St. John, a
hard-riding and hard-talking old friend of the Trefoil family who
gave the Duchess a very clear account of all the performance, during
which Lord Rufford fell into an interesting conversation with Mrs.
Mulready, the wife of the neighbouring bishop.
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