Therefore had she many enemies of her own sex, ever on the watch to catch her tripping, and once down must have expected no quarter from these gentle combatants.
A generous, masculine-minded woman, who is above these pretty vanities and rivalries, enjoys considerable immunity in that society, of which the laws are made by her sisters-in-arms, but they will _not_ forgive the greedy, unreasonable spoiler, who eyes, covets, and abstracts the property of others--who, to use their own expressive words, "takes their men from them, while all the time she has got enough and to spare of her own!"
But even a woman cannot calculate with certainty on what another woman will or will not do under given circumstances. The greatest generals have been defeated by unforeseen obstacles. A night's rain or a sandy road may foil the wisest strategy, destroy the nicest combinations.
Miss Douglas never came to dinner after all, and Daisy, too, was absent. Mrs. Lushington, outwardly deploring the want of a "young man" for the "Gordon girls," inwardly puzzled her brains to account for the joint desertion of her principal performers, a frightful suspicion crossing her mind that she might have been too vigorous in her measures, and so frightened Satanella into carrying Daisy off with her, _nolens volens_, once for all. She had short notes of excuse, indeed, from both; but with these she was by no means satisfied: the lady pleading headache, the gentleman a pre-engagement, since called to mind--this might mean anything. But if they _had_ gone away together, she thought, never would she meddle in such matters again!
Not till dinner was over, and Bessie Gordon had sat down to sing plaintive ballads in the drawing-room, did she feel reassured; but the last post brought a few lines from the General in fulfilment of his pledge to let her know how his wooing had sped.
"Congratulate me," he wrote, "my dear Mrs. Lushington, on having taken your advice. You were right about procrastination" (the General loved a long word, and was indeed somewhat pompous when he put pen to paper). "I am convinced that but for your kind counsels I should hardly have done justice to myself or the lady for whom I entertain so deep and lasting a regard. I feel I may now venture to hope time will do much--constant devotion more. At some future period, not far distant, it may be my pride to present to you your beautiful young charge in a new character, as the wife of your obliged and sincere friend--V. St. Josephs."