"Do you think,"
said Lady Marney, "that Mr Mountchesney will bear away the
prize?"
Lord Deloraine shook his head. "These great heiresses can
never make up their minds. The bitter drop rises in all their
reveries."
"And yet," said Lady Marney, "I would just as soon be married
for my money as my face."
Soon after this there was a stir in the saloons; a murmur, the
ingress of many gentlemen: among others Lord Valentine, Lord
Milford, Mr Egerton, Mr Berners, Lord Fitz-Heron, Mr Jermyn.
The House was up; the great Jamaica division was announced;
the radicals had thrown over the government, who left in a
majority of only five, had already intimated their sense of
the unequivocal feeling of the House with respect to them. It
was known that on the morrow the government would resign.
Lady Deloraine, prepared for the great result, was calm: Lady
St Julians, who had not anticipated it, was in a wild flutter
of distracted triumph. A vague yet dreadful sensation came
over her in the midst of her joy that Lady Deloraine had been
beforehand with her; had made her combinations with the new
Minister; perhaps even sounded the Court. At the same time
that in this agitating vision the great offices of the palace
which she had apportioned to herself and her husband seemed to
elude her grasp; the claims and hopes and interests of her
various children haunted her perplexed consciousness.
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