"Mary Denbigh is a cat. You know she is a cat. She would give Maria many a scratch if she caught Hunsdon. But she will not. It is all in your own hands, my dear."
Anne did not make the hoped for response. She did not even blush, and Mrs. Nunn continued, anxiety creeping into her voice: "You need never be much thrown with Maria. She would settle herself in the dower house which is almost as fine as Hunsdon Towers. In town she has her own house in Grosvenor Square. Hunsdon House in Piccadilly--one of the greatest mansions in London--would be all your own."
But she could not command the attention of her niece again, and permitting herself to conclude that the maiden was lost in a pleasing reverie, she subsided into silence, closed her eyes to the beauty of land and sea, and also declined into reverie, drowsy reverie in which pictures of herself in all the glory of near kinship to a beautiful and wealthy young peeress, were mixed with speculations upon her possible luck at cards that night. She had lost heavily of late and it was time she retrieved her fortunes.
At dinner and in the saloon later the talk was all of the poet's disappearance. Some held out for the known eccentricities of genius, others avowed themselves in favour of the theory that respectable society had risen to its surfeit the night before. The natural reaction had set in and he was enjoying himself once more in his own way and wondering that he had submitted to be bored so long. Anne went to bed her mind a chaos of doubt and terror.