"
Thaddeus was at a loss what to say; he only bowed; and the countess
and Lady Sara smiled at her nonsense.
When they parted for the night, this part of the conversation passed
off from all minds but that of Lady Tinemouth. She had considered the
subject, but in a different way from her gay companion. Sophia
supposed that the handsome Constantine wore the dress of his country
because it was the most becoming. But as such a whim did not
correspond with the other parts of his character, Lady Tinemouth. in
her own mind, attributed this adherence to his national habit to the
right cause.
She remarked that whenever she wished him to meet any agreeable
people at her house, he always declined these introductions under the
plea of his dress, though he never proposed to alter it. This
conduct, added to his silence on every subject which related to the
public amusements about town, led her to conclude, that, like the
banished nobility of France he was encountering the various
inconveniences of poverty in a foreign land. She hoped that he had
escaped its horrors; but she could not be certain, for he always
shifted the conversation when it too closely referred to himself.
These observations haunted the mind of Lady Tinemouth, and made her
anxious to contrive some opportunity in which she might have this
interesting Constantine alone, and by a proper management of the
discourse, lead to some avowal of his real situation.
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