That terrible name stuck in Lady Sellingworth's mind and seemed to
fasten there like a wound in a body.

As Rocheouart's partner had foretold, the name went all over London.
The duchess's _mot_ even got into a picture paper, and everyone laughed
about it. The duchess was delighted. Nobody seemed to mind. Even Lady
Sellingworth forced herself to quote the saying and to make merry over
it. But from that day she gave up dancing entirely. Nothing would induce
her even to join in a formal royal quadrille.

Before his return to Paris, Rocheouart came to bid her good-bye.
Although she was still, as she supposed, madly in love with him,
she concealed it, or, if she showed it, did so only by being rather
unnaturally cold with him. When he was gone she felt desperate.

Her imp had perhaps controlled her during the short time of Rocheouart's
final visit, had mocked and made her fear him. When she was alone,
however, he vanished for the moment.

From that time the hidden diffidence in Lady Sellingworth was her deadly
enemy, because it fought perpetually with her vanity and with her almost
uncontrollable desires. Sometimes she was tempted to give way to it
entirely and to retire from the fray. But she asked herself what she
had to retire to. The thought of a life lived in the shade, or of a
definitely middle-aged life, prolonged in such sunshine as falls upon
grey-haired heads, was terrible to her. She was not like the Duchess
of Wellingborough. She was cursed with what was called in her set "a
temperament," and she did not know how to conquer it, did not dare,
even, to try to conquer it.