And he had another matter to consider and to plague him--the matter of Hortensia Winthrop.

He thought of her a great deal more than was good for his peace of mind, for all that he pretended to a gladness that things were as they were.

Each morning that he lounged at the parade in St.James's Park, each evening that he visited the Ring, it was in the hope of catching some glimpse of her among the fashionable women that went abroad to see and to be seen.

And on the third morning after his arrival the thing he hoped for came to pass.
It had happened that my lady had ordered her carriage that morning, dressed herself with the habitual splendor, which but set off the shortcomings of her lean and angular person, egregiously coiffed, pulvilled and topknotted, and she had sent a message amounting to a command to Mistress Winthrop that she should drive in the park with her.
Poor Hortensia, whose one desire was to hide her face from the town's uncharitable sight just then, fearing, indeed, that Rumor's unscrupulous tongue would be as busy about her reputation as her ladyship had represented, attempted to assert herself by refusing to obey the command.

It was in vain.