"The people have been indemnified for their pains. To pay them more
would be to spoil them. You disperse money too liberally. There was no
fever in the place. Who could have anticipated such a downpour! I want
to consult Miss Dale on the important theme of a dress I think of
wearing at Mrs Mountstuart's to-night."

"Do. She is unerring."

"She has excellent taste."

"She dresses very simply herself."

"But it becomes her. She is one of the few women whom I feel I could
not improve with a touch."

"She has judgement."

He reflected and repeated his encomium.

The shadow of a dimple in Clara's cheek awakened him to the idea that
she had struck him somewhere: and certainly he would never again be
able to put up the fiction of her jealousy of Laetitia. What, then,
could be this girl's motive for praying to be released? The
interrogation humbled him: he fled from the answer.

Willoughby went in search of De Craye. That sprightly intriguer had no
intention to let himself be caught solus. He was undiscoverable until
the assembly sounded, when Clara dropped a public word or two, and he
spoke in perfect harmony with her. After that, he gave his company to
Willoughby for an hour at billiards, and was well beaten.