"You have a talent, sir, for crooked answers." "'Tis to conceal the rectitude of my behavior." "It fails of its object, then," said she, "for it deludes no one." She paused and laughed at his look of assumed blankness.

"I am deeply beholden to you," she whispered quickly, breathing at once gratitude and confusion.
"Though I don't descry the cause," said he, "'twill be something to comfort me." More he might have added then, for the mad mood was upon him, awakened by those soft brown eyes of hers.

But in that moment the others of that little party crowded upon them to take their leave of Mistress Winthrop.
Mr.Caryll felt satisfied that enough had been done to curb the slander concerning Hortensia.

But he was not long in learning how profound was his mistake.

On every side he continued to hear her discussed, and in such terms as made his ears tingle and his hands itch to be at work in her defence; for, with smirks and sneers and innuendoes, her escapade with Lord Rotherby continued to furnish a topic for the town as her ladyship had sworn it would.