"If she marries him there will be an end of everything," said Lady
Baldock to her daughter Augusta.
"She has more sense than that, mamma," said Augusta.
"I don't think she has any sense at all," said Lady Baldock;--"not in
the least. I do wish my poor sister had lived;--I do indeed."
Lord Chiltern was now in the room with Violet,--immediately upon that
conversation between Violet and his sister as to the expediency of
Violet becoming his wife. Indeed his entrance had interrupted the
conversation before it was over. "I am so glad to see you, Miss
Effingham," he said. "I came in thinking that I might find you."
"Here I am, as large as life," she said, getting up from her
corner on the sofa and giving him her hand. "Laura and I have been
discussing the affairs of the nation for the last two days, and have
nearly brought our discussion to an end." She could not help looking,
first at his eye and then at his hand, not as wanting evidence to
the truth of the statement which his sister had made, but because
the idea of a drunkard's eye and a drunkard's hand had been brought
before her mind. Lord Chiltern's hand was like the hand of any other
man, but there was something in his eye that almost frightened her.
It looked as though he would not hesitate to wring his wife's neck
round, if ever he should be brought to threaten to do so.
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