They will be here before we have seated ourselves.'
The gentlemen had exchanged the usual inquiry, whether there was
anything new to-day, without waiting for the answer. Sidonia introduced
Tancred and Lord Marney.
'And what have you been doing to-day?' said Edith to Sybil, by whose
side she had seated herself. 'Lady Bardolf did nothing last night but
gronder me, because you never go to her parties. In vain I said that you
looked upon her as the most odious of her sex, and her balls the pest of
society. She was not in the least satisfied. And how is Gerard?'
'Why, we really have been very uneasy about him,' said Lady Marney, 'but
the last bulletin,' she added, with a smile, 'announces a tooth.'
'Next year you must give him a pony, and let him ride with my Harry;
I mean my little Harry, Harry of Monmouth I call him; he is so like a
portrait Mr. Coningsby has of his grandfather, the same debauched look.'
'Your dinner is served, sir!'
Sidonia offered his hand to Lady Marney; Edith was attended by Tancred.
A door at the end of the room opened into a marble corridor, which led
to the dining-room, decorated in the same style as the library. It was
a suite of apartments which Sidonia used for an intimate circle like the
present.
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