Elle ne manque jamais de saisir promptement
L'apparente lueur du moindre attachement,
D'en semer la nouvelle avec beaucoup de joie,--_Le Tartufe_.
Among Morton's acquaintance was a certain Miss Blanche Blondel. They
had been schoolmates when children; and as, at a later date, Miss
Blanche had been fond of making long visits to a friend in Cambridge,
during term time, Morton, in common with many others, had a college
acquaintance with her, so that they were now on a footing of easy
intercourse. Not that he liked her. On the contrary, she had inspired
him with a very emphatic aversion; but being rather a skirmisher on
the outposts of society, than enrolled in the main battalion, she was
anxious to make the most of the acquaintance she had. She had the eyes
of an Argus, and was as sly, smooth, watchful, and _rusee_ as a
tortoise shell cat; wonderfully dexterous at finding or making gossip,
and unwearied in sowing it, broadcast, to the right and left.
One evening Morton was at a ball, crowded to the verge of suffocation.
At length he found himself in a corner from which there was no
retreat, while the stately proportions of Mrs. Frederic Goldenberg
barred his onward progress. But when that distinguished lady chanced
to move aside, she revealed the countenance of Miss Blondel, beaming
on him like the moon after an eclipse. She nodded and smiled. There
was no escape. Morton smiled hypocritically, and said, "Good evening."
Blanche, as usual, was eager for conversation, and, after a few
commonplaces, she said, turning up her eyes at him with an arch
expression,--
"I have a piece of news to tell you, Mr. Morton."
"Ah!" replied Morton, expecting something disagreeable.
"A piece of news that you will be charmed to hear."
"Indeed."
"Why, how cold you are! And I know that, in your heart, you are
burning to hear it."
"If you think so, you are determined to give my patience a hard
schooling."
"Well, I will not tantalize you any more. Miss Edith Leslie sailed
from Liverpool for home last Wednesday."
"Ah!"
"How cold you are again! Are you not glad to hear it?"
"Certainly--all her friends will be glad to hear it."
"Upon my word, Mr. Morton, you are worse and worse. When a gentleman
dances twice with a young lady on class day, and twice at Mrs.
Fanfaron's ball, and joins her in the street besides, has she not a
right to feel hurt when he hears with such profound indifference of
her coming home after a year's absence?"
Morton could hardly restrain the extremity of his distaste and
impatience.
"Miss Leslie, I imagine, would spend very little thought upon the
matter." And he hastened, first to change the conversation, and then
to close it altogether.
Having escaped from his fair informant, he remained divided between
pleasure at the tidings, and annoyance at the manner in which they had
been told.
In a few days Miss Leslie arrived. Her beauty had matured during her
absence. She was conspicuously and brilliantly handsome, and was
admired accordingly,--a fact which, though she could not but be
conscious of it, seemed to affect her very little. Morton found her
but slightly changed, with the same polished and quiet frankness, the
same lively conversation, not without a tinge of sarcasm, and the same
enthusiasm of character, betraying itself by an earnestness of manner,
and never by any extravagance of expression. He had many opportunities
of seeing her, Miss Blanche Blondel being but rarely present, and, in
his growing admiration of her, the charms of his unbridled cousin
faded more and more from his memory.