The servant was showing her into
the large drawing-room, when she again asked specially for Miss
Effingham. "I think Miss Effingham is there," said the man, opening
the door. Miss Effingham was not there. Lady Baldock was sitting
all alone, and Lady Laura perceived that she had been caught in
the net which she specially wished to avoid. Now Lady Baldock had
not actually or openly quarrelled with Lady Laura Kennedy or with
Lord Brentford, but she had conceived a strong idea that her niece
Violet was countenanced in all improprieties by the Standish family
generally, and that therefore the Standish family was to be regarded
as a family of enemies. There was doubtless in her mind considerable
confusion on the subject, for she did not know whether Lord Chiltern
or Mr. Finn was the suitor whom she most feared,--and she was aware,
after a sort of muddled fashion, that the claims of these two wicked
young men were antagonistic to each other. But they were both
regarded by her as emanations from the same source of iniquity,
and, therefore, without going deeply into the machinations of Lady
Laura,--without resolving whether Lady Laura was injuring her by
pressing her brother as a suitor upon Miss Effingham, or by pressing
a rival of her brother,--still she became aware that it was her duty
to turn a cold shoulder on those two houses in Portman Square and
Grosvenor Place.
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