O, by the bye, you need not
mention to Miss Granger that I have been making a call. The people I have
been to see are--are in humble circumstances; and I don't want her to know
anything about it."
"I hope I know my duty, ma'am," replied Mrs. Brobson stiffly. That hour's
parading in the gardens, without any relief from her subordinate, had
soured her temper, and inclined her to look with unfavourable eyes upon the
conduct of her mistress. Clarissa felt that she had excited the suspicion
of her servant, and that all her future meetings with her brother would
involve as much plotting and planning as would serve for the ripening of a
political conspiracy.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ONLY A PORTRAIT-PAINTER.
While Clarissa was pondering on that perplexing question, how she was to
see her brother frequently without Mr. Granger's knowledge, fortune had
favoured her in a manner she had never anticipated. After what Mr. Fairfax
had said to her about Austin Lovel's "set," the last thing she expected
was to meet her brother in society--that fast Bohemian world in which she
supposed him to exist, seemed utterly remote from the faultless circle
of Daniel Granger's acquaintance. It happened, however, that one of the
dearest friends to whom Lady Laura Armstrong had introduced her sweet
Clarissa was a lady of the Leo-Hunter genus--a certain Madame Caballero,
_nee_ Bondichori, a little elderly Frenchwoman, with sparkling black eyes
and inexhaustible vivacity; the widow of a Portuguese wine-merchant; a lady
whose fortune enabled her to occupy a first floor in one of the freestone
palaces of the Champs Elysees, to wear black velvet and diamonds in
perpetuity, and to receive a herd of small lions and a flock of admiring
nobodies twice a-week.
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