Then there was my lady, sitting at the top of her table, the very picture of a courteous, affable, well-bred hostess; perhaps, if anything, a little too placid and immovable in her outward demeanour. Who would have guessed at the wild and stormy passions that could rage beneath so calm a surface? Who would suppose that stately, reserved, majestic-looking woman had the recklessness of a brigand and the caprices of a child? A physiognomist might have marked the traces of strong feelings in her deepened eyes and the lines about her mouth--damages done by the hurricane, that years of calm can never repair; but there had been a page or two in Lady Scapegrace's life that, with all his acuteness, would have astonished Lavater himself. Then there was Miss Molasses, the pink of propriety and "what-would-mamma-say" young ladyism--cold as a statue, and, as old Chaucer says, "upright as a bolt," but all the time over head and ears in love with Frank Lovell, and ready to do anything he asked her at a moment's notice. There was Frank himself, gay and _débonnair_: outwardly the lightest-hearted man in the company; inwardly, I have reason to know, tormented with misgivings and stung by self-reproach. Playing a double game--attached to one woman and courting another, despising himself thoroughly the while; hemmed in by difficulties and loaded with debt, hampered by a bad book on "The Two Thousand," and playing hide-and-seek even now with the Jews--Frank's real existence was very different from the one he showed his friends. So with the rest of the party. Old Mrs. Molasses was bothered by her maid; Mr. Lumley puzzled by his beetles; his wife involved in a thousand schemes of mischief-making, which kept her in perpetual hot water: all, even honest Cousin John, were sedulously hiding their real thoughts from their companions; all were playing the game with counters, of which indeed they were lavish enough; but had you asked for a bit of sterling coin, fresh from the Mint and stamped with the impress of truth, they would have buttoned their pockets closer than ever--ay, though you had been bankrupt and penniless, they would have seen you further first, and _then they wouldn't_.
So we flirted, and talked, and laughed, and adjourned to the drawing-room, where, after a proper interval, we were joined by the gentlemen, who, in consideration of the day, consented for that one evening in the week to forego their usual games of chance or skill, such as whist, billiards, and cockamaroo. But the essential inanity of a fashionable party requires to be amused, so we set round a large table, and played at "letters," sedulously "shuffling" the handsome ivory capitals as we gave each other long jaw-breaking words, the difficulties of which were much enhanced by their being usually misspelt, but which, nevertheless, formed a very appropriate vehicle for what the world calls "flirtation." I can always find out other people's words much quicker than my own, and whilst I was puzzling over "centipede," and teasing Mrs. Lumley, who had given it me, for the initial letter, I peeped over the shoulder of my next neighbour, Miss Molasses, and made out clearly enough the word she had just received from Frank Lovell. _She_ would not have discovered it for a century, but I read it at a glance. I just _looked_ at Frank, who blushed like a girl, took it back, vowing he had spelt it wrong, and gave her another. Did he think to throw dust in my eyes? There is a stage of mental suffering at which we grow naturally clear-sighted. I had arrived at it long ago. Watching every action of my neighbours, I had yet ears for all that was going on around. Sir Guy, occupying a position on the hearth-rug, with his coat-tails over his arms, was haranguing the clergyman of the parish, a quiet, meek little man, who dined at Scamperley regularly on Sunday, and appeared frightened out of his wits. He was a man of education and intellect, a ripe scholar, a middling preacher, and a profound logician; but he was completely overpowered by coarse, ignorant, noisy Sir Guy.