"Who _could_ have told you this?" he uttered involuntarily.
"Glenmore, did you not yourself tell me that I must look to the conduct of those with whom I lived as the best guide for my own? did you not tell me that Lady Tenderden would be my best model? And if I have displeased you in my late conduct, think how much I have been led into the error by your own directions?"
"Georgina, your heart must tell you, that I could never intend, by any suggestions on my part, that you should form an _intimacy_ with such a person as Mr. Leslie Winyard, at least such an intimacy as you seem to have done by these notes. It is true I might have bid you lay aside the foolish expectation that I should be ever at your side in public; but I could never judge so ill of your understanding, as to suppose that such expressions, on my part, could be interpreted to the extent of endangering your honour and my happiness. But proceed. You have not yet told me how this intimacy has grown, or what encouragement you have given to justify such insolent presumption."
"Indeed, indeed, Glenmore, I can hardly tell you how. But first, whenever I _was_ in public, you were always absent; or, if not absent, at least occupied with others and not with myself. I sat alone, _ennuyé_, and with a feeling of desertion. At the _écarté_ parties, especially, I felt desolate. To them, you know, no young, unmarried ladies were admitted; and the persons who composed the society were either engaged in play, or else those who sat out were so engaged, two and two, in conversation at distant parts of the room, that I felt awkward in attempting to join them. Oh! how I have sat, night after night, in those fine rooms, thinking how little they afforded happiness, and wishing myself any where else! The first person who paid me any attention was Mr. Leslie Winyard. I found him agreeable and entertaining; and neither saw nor heard, in his manner or conversation, any thing that the whole world might not have seen or heard with me. If others spoke to me, it was a matter of form, or only a passing word, without seeming to care whether I answered or not; while he, on the contrary, always listened to what I had to say with apparent interest,--always seemed impressed with a wish to please me whenever we met; and thus our intimacy commenced. Deprived of you, Glenmore, I thought there was no harm in amusing myself in public during the time that I was there; instead of being quite _délaissée_. _You_ know how unwilling I was to enter on a life of dissipation." Lord Glenmore again sighed, as if in assent to the truth of these words; and blamed himself inwardly that he had ever suffered Lady Glenmore to mingle, unprotected by himself, in society which now, for the first time, appeared to him, in its full force, to be of such dangerous tendency, that he felt he ought to have known better.