"He is a very strange mixture."

"I really do not think you ought to ask him to the house. An atheist, a man of disreputable life, a----."

"Come, come, my dear, don't give him such a character, before Virginia."

This fragment of dialogue takes place over a cheery breakfast table in a house not very far from Park Lane.

The first speaker is a pleasant-looking man of between fifty and sixty, and his interlocutor is a rather prim lady, who appears older, but is, in reality, his junior by two years. They are Mr. Hamilton Hayward and his sister, Miss Susan.

The party has a third member--the Virginia alluded to by Mr. Hayward.

She is tall, handsome, bright-looking; evidently she possesses character, but with it the grace and charm of manner which prevent a woman of character from falling into that disagreeable being, a strong-minded woman.

"What are Mr. Vansittart's good points?" she says, smiling at her uncle.

"He has the kindest heart in the world," Mr. Hayward replies, warmly, "and he would never do a shabby thing. One of the few men who really practice not letting their left hand know the good their right does. He certainly is a looseish fish; but he does not parade his irregularities before the world--the world need not know anything about them if it does not insist on prying into his affairs. The greatest grudge women have against him is that he is mortally opposed to marriage, and carries on a crusade against it as though he were St. George, and matrimony the Dragon. He says if you want to make two people hate each other who would otherwise be disposed to love--"

"Hush! my dear Hamilton," cries Miss Susan, horrified. "Pray spare us a repet.i.tion of Mr. Vansittart's iniquitous opinions."

"I suppose," laughs Virginia, "that women don't insist on marrying him by force, do they?"

"A great many would be very glad to have him," rejoins Mr. Hamilton, "he is a tremendously taking fellow."

"And have you _really_ asked him to dinner?" interposes Miss Susan.

"I have, indeed, my dear, and I had a good deal of difficulty in persuading him to come. He persisted that he went so little into society--into _ladies_' society."

Miss Susan gave a little snort.

"He has no right to go into it at all with the views he holds; and, pray, whom is he to take in to dinner?"

"Mrs. Ashton, I thought," answers Mr. Hamilton. "I am afraid he would be bored with an unmarried lady."

"When I was young," says Miss Susan, bridling, "married women were as modest and particular in their conversation as unmarried ones."

"Ah!" observes her brother dryly.

"Uncle," cries Virginia, "let him take me. If he is original, I shall be sure to like him; and as I don't intend to marry, he need not be afraid of my having designs on him. I shall give him a hint whilst he is eating his soup that I have made a vow to _coiffer Ste. Catherine_."

"Virginia!" remonstrates Miss Susan; "and you know Sir Harry Hotspur is to take you."

"No, no," cries Virginia, "he bores me to distraction. Besides,"

laughing, "he 'goes for married women.' Let him have Mrs. Ashton, and give me Mr. Vansittart."

Miss Susan has one virtue, which is, that she is never quite so shocked as she pretends to be. Moreover, Virginia always gets her way with both uncle and aunt. So when the evening of the dinner party arrives, Mr.

Hayward brings Mr. Vansittart up to his niece and introduces him. Whilst he is uttering a few of those _ba.n.a.lites_ which must inevitably be the precursors of even the most interesting conversation between two strangers, Virginia is taking an inventory of him. He is tall, rather dark than fair; his features are well cut, and he has particularly expressive eyes, the color of which it takes her some time to decide about. At the same moment he is saying to himself: "What sort of woman is this, and what on earth shall I talk to her about? I hope to heaven she isn't a girl of the period. She doesn't look like it--still less like a prude. How I hate a society dinner! I suppose I shall be bored to death, as usual."

True to her promise, Virginia apprises him, whilst he yet is a.s.similating his soup, of her vow of celibacy. He turns to look at her, being just a shade surprised at receiving such a confidence so early in their acquaintance, and then he sees the archest smile curving the corners of her mouth, and meets a glance from a pair of brown eyes that he now perceives to be beautiful.

Mr. Vansittart has a quick intelligence--he understands in an instant the object of her remark. His eyes light up with a sudden gleam, and he murmurs quietly, "Thanks so much for putting me at my ease."

From that moment they are perfectly at home with each other, and fall to animated talk. He does not air his theories about marriage, nor is religion discussed between them, but there are plenty of other topics, and they become aware of a dozen feelings and sympathies in common.

Virginia is as bright and witty as she is modest and pure-minded; there is nothing in the world that Mr. Vansittart detests so much as a coa.r.s.e or immodest _lady_. So charmed is he with Virginia, that he remains close to her side the whole evening, to the surprise of every one else.

No one ever saw him devote himself to a girl before. He stays until the very last. As he walks away from the door, after lighting his cigar, he reflects to himself: "If any earthly power could induce me to marry, it would be a girl like that. But," resolutely, "nothing could." As Virginia wends her way upstairs to bed, she says to herself with a heavy sigh, "Why should he abuse marriage? How happy he might make some woman!"

Virginia is the daughter of a clergyman. Father and mother are both dead. She has a brother in the army, and a sister married to a country rector. Her uncle, Mr. Hayward, has adopted her. She is clever and accomplished. She has both pa.s.sion and imagination. Some of her ideas are original; she hates common-placeness, but she is also imbued with the attribute possessed by every charming woman, the love of approbation. This prevents her doing or saying anything _outre_ or unconventional; this makes her careful of her appearance and fond of fair apparel; this makes the evidence of admiration from the other s.e.x exceedingly agreeable to her; this causes her to adopt a manner towards them that induces jealous women to call her a coquette. She has had several offers of marriage, but she entertains peculiar ideas about the strength of pa.s.sion and the sympathy of thought a man and woman ought to feel for each other before they decide to spend a life-time together.

She does not think a man who has a good income, and who is simply not repulsive or abhorrent to her, a sufficient inducement.

The days wear on. Virginia does not forget Mr. Vansittart any more than he forgets her, but he weighs more on her heart than she does on his, for, happy man! he is perpetually occupied, being a barrister with a considerable practice, whilst she is an idle woman as the well-to-do of her s.e.x mostly are. If she goes to b.a.l.l.s or dances, she is always contrasting every man, with whom she talks or dances, with him; if she works at her embroidery, her thoughts are intent on him; if she reads, a hero of her own ousts the hero of the novel from her brain; if she sings, her voice is moved to strong pathos; her eyes become drowned by that strange pa.s.sion which consumes her. Days and weeks pa.s.s by; and she does not catch a glimpse of him; does not even hear his name. She sees it frequently in the _Times_. One Sunday afternoon, she and her uncle strolling in the Park meet him. He lifts his hat, and is about to pa.s.s, when something that her eyes have communicated to his heart, stops him suddenly. He turns and joins them. It is a delicious summer afternoon: they take chairs under the big trees which shade this cool green spot.

Presently a crony joins Mr. Hayward--soon the elder pair are deep in the _cause celebre_ of the day. Virginia and Mr. Vansittart have forgotten that other people exist in the world--the topics of their conversation are ordinary enough, but it is not from them that a subtle delight steals through their veins. What they heed is the language of each other's eyes. His say--"You fulfil my idea of perfect womanhood. I could love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. I respect you with my purest feelings; I love you with my strongest pa.s.sions; I would to G.o.d I could shake off my doubts about marriage. But I _know_ that if I married you, inexorable Destiny would no longer let us love one another."

And her eyes reiterate one little sentence, "You are my lord, my master, and I am your slave."

It was one of the very strongest cases of love at first sight. Such cases are more common, however, than people affect to think.

"Come home and dine with us," says Mr. Hayward, as a distant clock strikes seven.

"I'm afraid I have not time to dress," replies Philip Vansittart; "that is if you dine at half past seven, as I have heard you say you do."

"Never mind about dress," answers Mr. Hayward. "I won't dress either."

He has no designs on his guest, but he is a good-natured gentleman, and he sees that these two are attracted toward each other.

Miss Susan is at church. If her brother will dine at his usual hour on Sunday, she cannot help it, but she will not countenance him by her presence.

Philip Vansittart thinks he has never spent such a divinely happy evening as this. Virginia sings to him; her voice thrills to his very soul. Mr. Hamilton is asleep in the next room. As for Virginia, when she is alone, she first smiles a happy, triumphant smile, because she knows he loves her, and then she bursts into a pa.s.sion of tears and sobs until her whole frame is convulsed. If his mind is really set against marriage, what will become of her! She feels as though life without him must be one long night of despair.

Philip Vansittart paces his room until the small hours, thinking of this charming, lovable creature, who inspires stronger, deeper sensations in him than he has ever felt before. He tells himself, without vanity or self-deception, that what he feels for her, with that difference which governs the loves of men and women, she feels for him--heart has gone out to heart, nay, they are twain halves of a perfect heart. It is but for him to stretch out his hand to her, and she will come. Aye! but how can he stretch out his hand? In the society in which they both move there is but one way in which she can be his--the way sanctioned by society, blessed by the church. Society and the church will bless and smile upon any union: the decrepit old man with the blooming child; the drunkard and adulterer with the pure young girl; the avaricious youth with the doting old woman. Marriage purifies, sanctifies, hallows sensuality, greed, any, every base motive. To love as G.o.d made you free to love, unfettered, and with a true heart, is a crime; to live together full of hatred, loathing, and revolt, is to perform a sacred duty once you have tied yourself up in church. This was Vansittart's theory. Marriage to him was only another word for satiety, weariness, restraint, tyranny. He had never seen what he called a happy marriage, though he had observed many which the world crowned with that adjective, and he had sworn a thousand oaths that he would never subject himself to that miserable awakening which inevitably follows the temporary sleep of mind and reason, and the short dream of pa.s.sion which makes a man bind himself with shackles.

Philip paced his room for hours, fighting the hardest battle he had ever fought. It was the first time he had ever been tempted to marry--tempted beyond endurance. And, at last, ashen pale, in the wan morning light, and with set teeth, he took his final oath and resolve. He would save himself years of wretchedness by a month's anguish; he would not go near her, nor see her again. He was not entirely selfish; he did not forget that she might, nay, would suffer, but he said, with a sigh, "It will be best for her as for me."

A month pa.s.sed by: two months. Virginia grew pale, listless, _distraite_; her step was languid, her eye haggard. She did not know how to endure her life; she suffered torments day and night from an agonising desire to hear the voice, to meet the eyes again which had given light to her soul and in whose absence she felt it must needs perish of want. It was plain enough to her why he avoided her. He had seen that she loved him; he would not encourage false hopes in her breast. Had she not been warned, ere ever she met him, that he abjured marriage? She remembered, with a breaking heart, her own first playful words to him.

Mr. Hayward saw the change in Virginia, but he put it down entirely to the effects of a London season--to late hours and the want of fresh air.

Never mind! the end was near at hand, and then they would go and fill their lungs with mountain air and their eyes with fair scenes, and the roses would come back to her cheeks and lips, and the light to her eyes.

He never for an instant connected his niece's pallor with Philip Vansittart. He would have ridiculed the idea of people being twice in each other's company, and breaking their hearts with longing afterwards.

Mr. Hayward, his sister, and Virginia, were dining at a Swiss _table d'hote_. Exactly opposite were two empty places. The fish had been served, and two gentlemen came in and took them. One was Mr. Philip Vansittart. At sight of him the crimson blood rushed to Virginia's cheeks, then ebbed away, leaving her deathly pale. For a moment she thought she must swoon or die from the intensity of her feelings. Philip was scarcely less moved, though, being a man, he was better able to control his agitation. When he had time to look more narrowly at Virginia, he saw a mighty change in her. His heart smote him; and yet--had he not suffered? Great heaven! had his been a bed of roses? Had he not agonised after her?

Dinner over, the party went off into the garden. A mutual unspoken desire made Vansittart and Virginia steal off together to a secluded spot. Twilight was creeping on--the last glow of a rosy sunset was fading away; the strains of a delicious waltz were borne towards them.

Vansittart felt his pa.s.sion mastering him. He made a herculean effort over himself. He would speak. He would tell her the truth. After that she would forget him. They were sitting under a tree that screened them off from the rest of the garden. He could see well enough that she was trembling with nervousness; that delight, fear, expectation were blended in the beautiful eyes she turned towards him; and, lest suddenly he should yield to that mad longing to catch her to his heart, he began to speak hurriedly--abruptly.

But Virginia scarcely hears him. Her lips are burning to ask him that one question, and, not heeding what he is saying, she turns and in a tremulous voice that vibrates to his very soul, she says:

"Why have you kept away from us all this time?"