“Oh! a secret as yet?” said the duchess; “very well! I can keep a secret.”
Lady Margaret looked down, and laughed prettily.
“I thought till now,” said Constance, with grave composure, “that no person could be more contemptible than one who collects idle reports: I now find I was wrong: a person infinitely more contemptible is one who invents them.”
The rude duchess beat at her own weapons, blushed with anger even through her rouge: but Constance turned away, and, still leaning on Lord Erpingham’s arm, sought another seat;—that seat, on the opposite side of the pillar behind which Godolphin sat, was still within his hearing.
“Upon my word, Miss Vernon,” said Erpingham, “I admire your spirit. Nothing like setting down those absurd people who try to tease one, and think one dares not retort. But pray—I hope I’m not impertinent—pray, may I ask if this rumour have any truth in it?”
“Certainly not,” said Constance, with great effort, but in a clear tone.
“No: I should have thought not—I should have thought not. Godolphin’s much too poor—much too poor for you. Miss Vernon is not born to marry for love in a cottage,—is she?”
Constance sighed.
That soft, low tone thrilled to Godolphin’s very heart. He bent forward: he held his breath: he thirsted for her voice; for some tone, some word in answer; it came not at that moment.
“You remember,” renewed the earl,—“you remember Miss L–? no: she was before your time. Well! she married S–, much such another fellow as Godolphin. He had not a shilling: but he lived well: had a house in Mayfair; gave dinners; hunted at Melton, and so forth: in short, he played high. She had about ten thousand pounds. They married, and lived for two years so comfortably, you have no idea. Every one envied them. They did not keep a close carriage, but he used to drive her out to dinners in his French cabriolet.3 There was no show—no pomp: everything deuced neat, though; quite love in a cottage—only the cottage was in Curzon Street. At length, however, the cards turned; S– lost everything; owed more than he could ever pay: we were forced to cut him; and his relation, Lord –, coming into the ministry a year afterwards, got him a place in the Customs. They live at Brompton: he wears a pepper-and-salt coat, and she a mob-cap, with pink ribands: they have five hundred a year, and ten children. Such was the fate of S–‘s wife; such may be the fate of Godolphin’s. Oh, Miss Vernon could not marry him!”
“You are right, Lord Erpingham,” said Constance with emphasis; “but you take too much licence in expressing your opinion.”
Before Lord Erpingham could stammer forth his apology they heard a slight noise behind: they turned; Godolphin had risen. His countenance, always inclined to a calm severity—for thought is usually severe in its outward aspect—bent now on both the speakers with so dark and menacing an aspect that the stout earl felt his heart stand still for a moment; and Constance was appalled as if it had been the apparition, and not the living form, of her lover that she beheld. But scarcely had they seen this expression of countenance ere it changed. With a cold and polished smile, a relaxed brow and profound inclination of his form Godolphin greeted the two: and passing from his seat with a slow step glided among the crowd and vanished.
What a strange thing, after all, is a great assembly! An immense mob of persons, who feel for each other the profoundest indifference—met together to join in amusements which the large majority of them consider wearisome beyond conception. How unintellectual, how uncivilised, such a scene, and such actors! What a remnant of barbarous times, when people danced because they had nothing to say! Were there nothing ridiculous in dancing, there would be nothing ridiculous in seeing wise men dance. But that sight would be ludicrous because of the disparity between the mind and the occupation. However, we have some excuse; we go to these assemblies to sell our daughters, or flirt with our neighbours’ wives. A ballroom is nothing more or less than a great market-place of beauty. For my part, were I a buyer, I should like making my purchases in a less public mart.
“Come, Godolphin, a glass of champagne,” cried the young Lord Belvoir, as they sat near each other at the splendid supper.
“With all my heart; but not from that bottle! We must have a new one; for this glass is pledged to Lady Delmour, and I would not drink to her health but from the first sparkle! Nothing tame, nothing insipid, nothing that has lost its first freshness, can be dedicated to one so beautiful and young.”
The fresh bottle was opened, and Godolphin bowed over his glass to Lord Belvoir’s sister—a Beauty and a Blue. Lady Delmour admired Godolphin, and she was flattered by a compliment that no one wholly educated in England would have had the gallant courage to utter across a crowded table.
“You have been dancing?” said she.
“No!”
“What then?”
“What then?” said Godolphin. “Ah, Lady Delmour, do not ask.” The look that accompanied the word, supplied them with a meaning. “Need I add,” said he, in a lower voice, “that I have been thinking of the most beautiful person present?”
“Pooh,” said Lady Delmour, turning away her head. Now, that pooh is a very significant word. On the lips of a man of business, it denotes contempt for romance; on the lips of a politician it rebukes a theory. With that monosyllable, a philosopher massacres a fallacy: by those four letters a rich man gets rid of a beggar. But in the rosy mouth of a woman the harshness vanishes, the disdain becomes encouragement. “Pooh!” says the lady when you tell her she is handsome; but she smiles when she says it. With the same reply she receives your protestation of love, and blushes as she receives. With men it is the sternest, with women the softest, exclamation in the language.
“Pooh!” said Lady Delmour, turning away her head:—and Godolphin was in singular spirits. What a strange thing that we should call such hilarity from our gloom! The stroke induces the flash; excite the nerves by jealousy, by despair, and with the proud you only trace the excitement by the mad mirth and hysterical laughter it creates. Godolphin was charming comme un amour, and the young countess was delighted with his gallantry.
“Did you ever love?” asked she, tenderly, as they sat alone after supper.
“Alas, yes!” said he.
“How often?”
“Read Marmontel’s story of the Four Phials: I have no other answer.”
“Oh, what a beautiful tale that is! The whole history of a man’s heart is contained in it.”
While Godolphin was thus talking with Lady Delmour, his whole soul was with Constance; of her only he thought, and on her he thirsted for revenge. There is a curious phenomenon in love, showing how much vanity has to do with even the best species of it; when, for your mistress to prefer another, changes all your affection into hatred:—is it the loss of the mistress, or her preference to the other? The last, to be sure: for if the former, you would only grieve—but jealousy does not make you grieve, it makes you enraged; it does not sadden, it stings. After all, as we grow old, and look back on the “master passion,” how we smile at the fools it made of us—at the importance we attach to it—of the millions that have been governed by it! When we examine the passion of love, it is like examining the character of some great roan; we are astonished to perceive the littlenesses that belong to it. We ask in wonder, “How come such effects from such a cause?”
Godolphin continued talking sentiment with Lady Delmour, until her lord, who was very fond of his carriage horses, came up and took her away; and then, perhaps glad to be relieved, Percy sauntered into the ballroom, where, though the crowd was somewhat thinned, the dance was continued with that spirit which always seems to increase as the night advances.
For my own part, I now and then look late in at a ball as a warning and grave memento of the flight of time. No amusement belongs of right so essentially to the young, in their first youth,—to the unthinking, the intoxicated,—to those whose blood is an elixir.
“If Constance