"Well, Gordon, have you heard anything of Douglas Dale?" she asked her
brother, day after day.
One day he came home with a very gloomy face, and when she uttered the
usual question, he answered her in his gloomiest tone.
"I've heard something you'll scarcely care to learn," he said, "as it
must sound the death-knell of all your hopes in that quarter. You know,
Douglas Dale is a member of the Phoenix, as well as the Forum. I don't
belong to the Phoenix, as you also know, but I meet Dale occasionally
at the Forum. Yesterday I lunched with Lord Caversham, a member of the
Phoenix, and an acquaintance of Dale's; and from him I learned that
Douglas Dale has publicly announced his intended marriage with Paulina
Durski."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Lydia.
She had heard of Paulina and the villa at Fulham from her brother, and
she hated the lovely Austrian for the beauty and the fascination which
won her a kind of renown amongst the fops and lordlings--the idlers and
spendthrifts of the fashionable clubs.
"It cannot be true," cried Miss Graham, flushing crimson with anger.
"It is one of Lord Caversham's absurd stories; and I dare say is
without the slightest foundation. I cannot and will not believe that
Douglas Dale would throw himself away upon such a woman as this Madame
Durski."
"You have never seen her?"
"Of course not."
"Then don't speak so very confidently," said Captain Graham, who was
malicious enough to take some pleasure in his sister's discomfiture.
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