Durance's chambers; and I walk back with you, and there we are joined
by mama; and we are to have a feast of literary celebrities.'

'Colney's selection of them! And Simeon Fenellan, I hope. Perhaps
Dartrey. Perhaps . . . eh?'

She reddened. So Dudley Sowerby's unspoken name could bring the blush to
her cheeks. Dudley had his excuses in his brother's condition. His
father's health, too, was--but this was Dudley calculating. Where there
are coronets, calculations of this sort must needs occur; just as where
there are complications. Odd, one fancies it, that we walking along the
pavement of civilized life, should be perpetually summoning Orcus to our
aid, for the sake of getting a clear course.

'And supposing a fog, my dearie?' he said.

'The daughter in search of her father carries a lamp to light her to him
through densest fogs as well as over deserts,' etc. She declaimed a long
sentence, to set the ripple running in his features; and when he left the
room for a last word with Armandine, she flung arms round her mother's
neck, murmuring: 'Mother! mother!' a cry equal to 'I am sure I do
right,' and understood so by Nataly approving it; she too on the line of
her instinct, without an object in sight.




CHAPTER XXXVII

THE MOTHER-THE DAUGHTER