Vargrave smiled significantly at Lord Raby, and hastened to lead the conversation into party discussion. Wrapped in his proud disdain of what he considered the contests of factions for toys and shadows, Maltravers remained silent; and the party soon broke up, and adjourned to the ballroom.
CHAPTER III.
LE plus grand defaut de la penetration n'est pas de n'aller point jusqu'au but,--c'est de la passer.*--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
* "The greatest defect of penetration is not that of not going just up to the point,--'tis the passing it."
EVELYN had looked forward to the ball at Knaresdean with feelings deeper than those which usually inflame the fancy of a girl proud of her dress and confident of her beauty. Whether or not she _loved_ Maltravers, in the true acceptation of the word "love," it is certain that he had acquired a most powerful command over her mind and imagination. She felt the warmest interest in his welfare, the most anxious desire for his esteem, the deepest regret at the thought of their estrangement. At Knaresdean she should meet Maltravers,--in crowds, it is true; but still she should meet him; she should see him towering superior above the herd; she should hear him praised; she should mark him, the observed of all. But there was another and a deeper source of joy within her. A letter had been that morning received from Aubrey, in which he had announced his arrival for the next day. The letter, though affectionate, was short. Evelyn had been some months absent,--Lady Vargrave was anxious to make arrangements for her return; but it was to be at her option whether she would accompany the curate home. Now, besides her delight at seeing once more the dear old man, and hearing from his lips that her mother was well and happy, Evelyn hailed in his arrival the means of extricating herself from her position with Lord Vargrave. She would confide in him her increased repugnance to that union, he would confer with Lord Vargrave; and then--and then--did there come once more the thought of Maltravers? No! I fear it was not Maltravers who called forth that smile and that sigh! Strange girl, you know not your own mind!--but few of us, at your age, do.
In all the gayety of hope, in the pride of dress and half-conscious loveliness, Evelyn went with a light step into Caroline's room. Miss Merton had already dismissed her woman, and was seated by her writing-table, leaning her cheek thoughtfully on her hand.
"Is it time to go?" said she, looking up. "Well, we shall put Papa, and the coachman, and the horses, too, in excellent humour. How well you look! Really, Evelyn, you are indeed beautiful!" and Caroline gazed with honest but not unenvious admiration at the fairy form so rounded and yet so delicate, and the face that seemed to blush at its own charms.
"I am sure I can return the flattery," said Evelyn, laughing bashfully.
"Oh, as for me, I am well enough in my way: and hereafter, I dare say, we may be rival beauties. I hope we shall remain good friends, and rule the world with divided empire. Do you not long for the stir, and excitement, and ambition of London?---for ambition is open to us as to men!"
"No, indeed," replied Evelyn, smiling; "I could be ambitious, indeed; but it would not be for myself, but for--"
"A husband, perhaps; well, you will have ample scope for such sympathy. Lord Vargrave--"
"Lord Vargrave again?" and Evelyn's smile vanished, and she turned away.
"Ah," said Caroline, "I should have made Vargrave an excellent wife--pity he does not think so! As it is, I must set up for myself and become a _maitresse femme_. So you think I look well to-night? I am glad of it--Lord Doltimore is one who will be guided by what other people say."
"You are not serious about Lord Doltimore?"
"Most sadly serious."
"Impossible! you could not speak so if you loved him."
"Loved him! no! but I intend to marry him."
Evelyn was revolted, but still incredulous.
"And you, too, will marry one whom you do not love--'tis our fate--"
"Never!"
"We shall see."
Evelyn's heart was damped, and her spirits fell.
"Tell me now," said Caroline, pressing on the wrung withers, "do you not think this excitement, partial and provincial though it be--the sense of beauty, the hope of conquest, the consciousness of power--better than the dull monotony of the Devonshire cottage? Be honest--"
"No, no, indeed!" answered Evelyn, tearfully and passionately; "one hour with my mother, one smile from her lips, were worth it all."
"And in your visions of marriage, you think then of nothing but roses and doves,--love in a cottage!"
"Love _in a home_, no matter whether a palace or a cottage," returned Evelyn.
"Home!" repeated Caroline, bitterly; "home,--home is the English synonym for the French _ennui_. But I hear Papa on the stairs."
A ballroom--what a scene of commonplace! how hackneyed in novels! how trite in ordinary life! and yet ballrooms have a character and a sentiment of their own, for all tempers and all ages. Something in the lights, the crowd, the music, conduces to stir up many of the thoughts that belong to fancy and romance. It is a melancholy scene to men after a certain age. It revives many of those lighter and more graceful images connected with the wandering desires of youth,--shadows that crossed us, and seemed love, but were not; having much of the grace and charm, but none of the passion and the tragedy, of love. So many of our earliest and gentlest recollections are connected with those chalked floors, and that music painfully gay, and those quiet nooks and corners, where the talk that hovers about the heart and does not touch it has been held. Apart and unsympathizing in that austerer wisdom which comes to us after deep passions have been excited, we see form after form chasing the butterflies that dazzle us no longer among the flowers that have evermore lost their fragrance.
Somehow or other, it is one of the scenes that remind us most forcibly of the loss of youth! We are brought so closely in contact with the young and with the short-lived pleasures that once pleased us, and have forfeited all bloom. Happy the man who turns from "the tinkling cymbal" and "the gallery of pictures," and can think of some watchful eye and some kind heart _at home_; but those who have no home--and they are a numerous tribe--never feel lonelier hermits or sadder moralists than in such a crowd.
Maltravers leaned abstractedly against the wall, and some such reflections, perhaps, passed within, as the plumes waved and the diamonds glittered around him. Ever too proud to be vain, the _monstrari digito_ had not flattered even in the commencement of his career. And now he heeded not the eyes that sought his look, nor the admiring murmur of lips anxious to be overheard. Affluent, well-born, unmarried, and still in the prime of life,--in the small circles of a province, Ernest Maltravers would in himself have been an object of interest to the diplomacy of mothers and daughters; and the false glare of reputation necessarily deepened curiosity, and widened the range of speculators and observers.
Suddenly, however, a new object of attention excited new interest; new whispers ran through the crowd, and these awakened Maltravers from his revery. He looked up, and beheld all eyes fixed upon one form! His own eyes encountered those of Evelyn Cameron!
It was the first time he had seen this beautiful young person in all the _eclat_, pomp, and circumstance of her station, as the heiress of the opulent Templeton,--the first time he had seen her the cynosure of crowds, who, had her features been homely, would have admired the charms of her fortune in her face. And now, as radiant with youth, and the flush of excitement on her soft cheek, she met his eye, he said to himself: "And could I have wished one so new to the world to have united her lot with a man for whom all that