The next morning Alfred was on his guard, and watched the first
approaches of the duke's party with a palpitating heart.
But, alas! Lady Palliser, as before, was occupied and saw him not;
while, what was much worse, it was evident that Lady Caroline did see
him at a distance, and from that moment kept her eyes fixed on the
ground. They passed each other, and he could discern the glow of
consciousness steal over her cheek as they did so. Again and again they
passed--still without recognition; till at length he scarcely ventured
to look that way. Lord Darlingford now appeared. He attached himself to
Lady Arden's party--Jane in particular. After a turn or two, he
apologised for quitting them, saying he must go and speak to Lady
Palliser. Alfred, forming a sudden and desperate resolve, at which he
often afterwards looked back with astonishment, took his lordship's arm,
and accompanied him. The duke had just quitted the walk, and Lady
Palliser, quite _désoeuvrée_, happened at the moment to be in what she
called a humour for being spoken to. She received, therefore, not only
Lord Darlingford but Alfred with the utmost graciousness. Caroline,
after a timid glance at her mother's countenance, looked round and
recognised our hero with a smile that seemed to open to him in an
instant the gates of Paradise. Nay, the Montpelier walk itself became,
as by a sudden revelation, the very garden of Eden to his delighted
eyes. He was walking next to Caroline--he did not know how he had got
there! He was speaking to her--he did not know what he was saying! Her
countenance was turned towards him to reply, while the close bonnet
which, while it was so turned, hid its loveliness from every eye. It was
a slight summer one of simple snowy sarcenet, and though it warded off
the glare of the out-door sun-beam, it admitted through its half
transparent texture a heavenly kind of light, which at once accurately
defined, and seemed a fitting shrine for the perfectly angelic features
around which it dwelt: the pure lively red of the lovely moving lip,
where all else was so white; the smile of enchantment, exposing to view
the pearly teeth; the delicately pencilled brow; the large dark eyes,
which yet were so soft, so modestly raised, so meek in their expression,
that their very lustre seemed that of compassion's tear ere it o'erflows
the lid! Yet did their mild beams make such an unmerciful jumble of all
Alfred's ideas, that he was quite sure he must be talking nonsense. But
there was no help for it; if he spoke not, he saw but the fluted outside
of the white sarcenet bonnet; it was necessary to make ceaseless appeals
to Caroline's attention, or the graceful head would not be turned
towards him; the lovely eyes would not be raised to his, the beauteous
lips, fresh as rose leaves moist with morning dew, would not be parted
in reply; to purchase delights such as these he was compelled to risk
his reputation as a sage, and go on without an effort to think. At
length, however he came to an unlucky pause, and instead of jumping
over it, unfortunately began to weigh what subject he should next
propound. But, alas! the precious moments flew past in rapid succession,
and, one after another, became absorbed in the gulph of eternity, while
our poor hero was still at a stand.
And now strange uneasy sensations began to blend with the dream-like
felicity he had hitherto enjoyed, though he was not yet awake to the
cause, which was simply this: the band was playing that well known note
of dismissal--the national anthem--and anticipations of approaching
separation began to steal over his senses. To his surprise and infinite
delight, however, Lady Palliser suddenly asked Lord Darlingford and
himself, with the prettiest and most petitioning manner possible, to go
home with her party to breakfast. We need scarcely say that Alfred
consented; so did Lord Darlingford, though not quite so willingly, for
he had intended to return to Lady Arden's party.
After this morning, Alfred not only joined his new friends whenever they
appeared, but became in a short time almost a daily visitor at Jessamine
bower; and apparently with the entire approbation of Lady Palliser.
Indeed, it was in general some message or some commission of her
ladyship's, or some allusion to the morrow made at parting, almost
amounting to an appointment, which furnished him with an excuse for
calling. He, poor fellow, was flattered, delighted, filled with hope and
joy! But, alas! he was not sufficiently acquainted with the character of
Lady Palliser to understand his own position. Her ladyship was a being
without affections and without occupation; who in her intercourse with
others, and from total heartlessness, cared not whose best feelings were
the springs of the puppet-show, so the movements of the puppets amused
her--and he happened to be the whim of the hour;--to order him about, to
see him perfectly at her disposal, chanced to be what, just then,
afforded a species of excitement to her restless idleness and morbid
selfishness.