Two Bad Blue Eyes

"Why does Lauraine not come to town? " says Mrs. Douglas, impatiently, to Lady Etwynde. "She must be moped to death in that dreary Northumberland place. It gives me the horrors even to think of it."

It is a cold afternoon in February, and it is Lady Etwynde's "day," but the esthetes are deserting her now. Her marriage is fixed for the end of the month. It is to be very quiet, and Lauraine has written to say she cannot come to it; her health is so delicate, that all excitement and fatigue are forbidden. But the real truth is, that Sir Francis has developed a new system of tyranny, framed in by every species of insulting suspicion, and has ordered Lauraine to remain at Falcon's Chase, and declared she shall not even go up to London for the season. It is childish, it is cowardly, and it is unreasonable, and he knows it is all these; but he is infuriated with her, and savage at the failure of his schemes, and this is the only sort of revenge that he can think of at present. He himself is in Paris, with all the gaieties and amusements of the season awaiting his selection, but chafing inwardly and fiercely at Lady Jean's strange conduct, and complete avoidance of himself.