more intimate terms. He did not know that she was at St. Mary's when he accepted Lord Teviot's invitation; but her presence, when he found her in the drawing-room, appeared to give him neither pain nor pleasure.
Lady Portmore talked to him in the evening for two hours and a half, in a low, confidential tone, making him thoroughly uncomfortable by assurances, that she was his constant friend with Mary Forrester.
"Now, my dear Stuart, I am not paying you a compliment when I assure you I feel quite justified in persuading Mary that she ought to relent at last. She will be a model wife; and I know you have too much good taste not to give up play, and any other little pursuits, when you marry."
"My dear Lady Portmore, for propriety's sake don't talk of my other little pursuits in that meaning tone; and for my sake, do not propose in my name to Miss Forrester. She might accept me."
"Well, and you know you are dying to marry her. Now you must have no disguise with me, Stuart; we know each other too well for that. You are a little mortified—yes, you know you are—at Mary's perverseness. Come, own it at once, and then trust to me for taking up your cause warmly."
"Good heavens, Lady Portmore, what a strange way you have of proving your friendship! I will trouble you not to assume that I wish to pay court to your rich friend, or, if I did, that I am not able to make my own cause good. But I see how it is. You wish to get Miss Forrester out of the way. She has evidently been tampering with some of your victims. Has Ernest wavered in his allegiance?"
Colonel Stuart had often found that there was no way of checking Lady Portmore's remarks but by a bold impertinence addressed to herself. She had not wit enough to answer it, nor discretion enough to seem not to understand it. So it threw her into long verbose explanations,
