But Henrietta
was at some trouble to eliminate Serafina from the sick-chamber, holding
her tendencies suspect as insidiously and quite superfluously
sentimental, where any male creature might be concerned.
Carteret and Sir Charles Verity, on the other hand, she encouraged with
the sweetest dignity imaginable, to take turns at the bedside--and to
look in upon her drawing-room, also, on their way back and forth thither.
A common object and that a philanthropic one, gives unimpeachable
occasions of intimacy. These Henrietta did not neglect, though touching
them with a disarming pensiveness of demeanour. The invalid was, "the
thing "--the thought of him wholly paramount with her. Her anxiety might
be lightened, perhaps, but by no means deleted, by the attentions of
these friends of former years.--A pretty enough play throughout, as the
two gentlemen silently noted, the one with kindly, the other with
sardonic, humour.
Her henchman, Marshall Wace, meanwhile, Henrietta kept on the run until
the triangular patch of colour, straining either prominent cheek-bone,
was more than ever accentuated.
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