Much as she had desired a confidante, she had never demanded one so remarkably beautiful, and she could not but feel that a very much plainer friend would have served her purpose quite as well--and indeed better.

Once or twice she intercepted a glance passing between this superfluously handsome lady and the principal guest, until at last it occurred to her as a strange and unseemly thing that Lord Tulliwuddle should be paying so long a visit to his shooting tenants.

Eva, on her part, felt a curiously similar sensation.

These American gentlemen were as pleasant as report had painted them, but she now discovered an odd antipathy to American women, or at least to their unabashed method of making themselves agreeable to noblemen.

It confirmed, indeed, the worst reports she had heard concerning the way in which they raided the British marriage market.
Being placed beside one of these lovely girls and opposite the other, the Baron, one would think, would be in the highest state of contentment; but though still flushed with his triumphant caperings over the broadswords, and exhibiting a graciousness that charmed his hosts, he struck his observant friend as looking a trifle disturbed at soul.
He would furtively glance across the table and then as furtively throw a sidelong look at his neighbor, and each time he appeared to grow more thoughtful.