She watched therefore with a restless eye all those who
attempted to monopolize Lady Joan's attention, and contrived
perpetually to interfere with their manoeuvres. In the midst
of a delightful conversation that seemed to approach a crisis,
Lady St Julians was sure to advance, and interfere with some
affectionate appeal to Lady Joan, whom she called her "dear
child" and "sweetest love," while she did not deign even to
notice the unhappy cavalier whom she had thus as it were
unhorsed.
"My sweet child!" said Lady St Julians to Lady Joan, "you have
no idea how unhappy Frederick is this evening, but he cannot
leave the House, and I fear it will be a late affair."
Lady Joan looked as if the absence or presence of Frederick
was to her a matter of great indifference, and then she added,
"I do not think the division so important as is generally
imagined. A defeat upon a question of colonial government
does not appear to me of sufficient weight to dissolve a
cabinet."
"Any defeat will do that now," said Lady St Julians, "but to
tell you the truth I am not very sanguine. Lady Deloraine
says they will be beat: she says the radicals will desert
them; but I am not so sure. Why should the radicals desert
them? And what have we done for the radicals? Had we indeed
foreseen this Jamaica business, and asked some of them to
dinner, or given a ball or two to their wives and daughters! I
am sure if I had had the least idea that we had so good a
chance of coming in, I should not have cared myself to have
done something; even to have invited their women.
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