" Then there was a pause,
during which the maid-servant managed to shut the door and to escape.
"Lord Chiltern is up in London," said Miss Palliser, rising from her
chair, "and Lady Chiltern is with him. They will be at home, I think,
to-morrow, but I am not quite sure." She looked at him rather as
Diana might have looked at poor Orion than as any Ariadne at any
Bacchus; and for a moment Mr. Spooner felt that the pale chillness of
the moon was entering in upon his very heart and freezing the blood
in his veins.
"Miss Palliser--" he began.
But Adelaide was for the moment an unmitigated Diana. "Mr. Spooner,"
she said, "I cannot for an instant suppose that you wish to say
anything to me."
"But I do," said he, laying his hand upon his heart.
"Then I must declare that--that--that you ought not to. And I hope
you won't. Lady Chiltern is not in the house, and I think that--that
you ought to go away. I do, indeed."
But Mr. Spooner, though the interview had been commenced with
unexpected and almost painful suddenness, was too much a man to be
driven off by the first angry word.
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