Privately, he reflected that if Lizzie Acton had had no news of his son, Clifford must have gone to Boston for the evening: an unnatural course of a summer night, especially when accompanied with disingenuous representations.
"You must remember that he has two cousins," said Acton, laughing.

And then, coming to the point, "If Lizzie is not here," he added, "neither apparently is the Baroness." Mr.Wentworth stared a moment, and remembered that queer proposition of Felix's.

For a moment he did not know whether it was not to be wished that Clifford, after all, might have gone to Boston.

"The Baroness has not honored us tonight," he said.

"She has not come over for three days." "Is she ill ?" Acton asked.
"No; I have been to see her." "What is the matter with her ?" "Well," said Mr.Wentworth, "I infer she has tired of us." Acton pretended to sit down, but he was restless; he found it impossible to talk with Mr.Wentworth.At the end of ten minutes he took up his hat and said that he thought he would "go off." It was very late; it was ten o'clock.
His quiet-faced kinsman looked at him a moment.