CHAPTER XVIII.
The Rivals The intimacy between Frank and Miss Dunstable grew and prospered.
That is to say, it prospered as an intimacy, though perhaps hardly as a love affair.

There was a continued succession of jokes between them, which no one else in the castle understood; but the very fact of there being such a good understanding between them rather stood in the way of, than assisted, that consummation which the countess desired.

People, when they are in love with each other, or even when they pretend to be, do not generally show it by loud laughter.

Nor is it frequently the case that a wife with two hundred thousand pounds can be won without some little preliminary despair.

Now there was no despair at all about Frank Gresham.
Lady de Courcy, who thoroughly understood that portion of the world in which she herself lived, saw that things were not going quite as they should do, and gave much and repeated advice to Frank on the subject.