Lord Hartfield sent his son to Turkey in the diplomatic service; and the old dowager Lady Carrisbrook whisked her niece off to London, and kept her there, under watch and ward, till Lord Maulevrier proposed and was accepted by her.

There should be no foolishness, no clandestine correspondence.

The iron hand crushed two young hearts, and secured a brilliant future for the bodies which survived.
Fifteen years later Ronald's elder brother died unmarried.

Ha abandoned that career of vagrant diplomacy which had taken him all over Europe, and as far as Washington, and re-appeared in London, the most elegant man of his era, but thoroughly _blase_.

There were rumours of an unhappy attachment in the Faubourg Saint Germain; of a tragedy at Petersburg.
Society protested that Lord Hartfield would die a bachelor, as his brother died before him.