Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/234

 "So like her," said Lady Walden. "I wish she would take up the Sheffield side, and give up appropriating Mr. G. and his friends to herself."

"I am sure, so do I," said Helen, in an absent tone.

"And yet," pursued Colonel Stuart, "she is of use too. She has great power over her friends; how or why it is difficult to say; but in some instances," he added in a hesitating voice, "it is marvellous."

Helen was silent, she hardly seemed to hear what was passing. Amelia took up the argument against Lady Portmore—her charms and her agreeableness; and Colonel Stuart, with a manifest affectation of keeping back the facts that would tell best for him, ended by saying that somehow or other her influence over some people had been exerted with great success. Amelia left the room, and Helen, rousing herself from her fit of abstraction, asked Colonel Stuart "whether there was to be a large party at Portsdown."

"Lady Portmore did not name her guests, but said, as you probably know, that Lord Teviot would land at Southampton on the 9th, and that she expected him on the 10th." He put on a look of distress, and added, "I own this surprises me; and what is more, it provokes me. I cannot endure for your sake," he added in a low earnest tone, "the infatuation which can keep Teviot for an hour from such a home as his."

Helen looked surprised, but said coldly, "We have only Lady Portmore's word for the invitation that has been given; I very much doubt whether it will be accepted. I am thinking of meeting Lord Teviot at Southampton."

"Are you, indeed?" and then he paused, and drawing his chair nearer to her, and looking at her with an air of deep compassion, said, "Perhaps you are right. If anything should occur to distress Teviot, I mean to annoy him, he must feel the comfort of having you near him. I