"I did," returned Mary, "and I was not surprised. Such manners as Mr.

Constantine's are not to be acquired in a cottage."

"Dear, dear Mary!" cried Euphemia, flinging her ivory arms round her neck; "how I love you for these words! You are generous, you think n.o.bly, and I will no longer hesitate to--to--" and breaking off, she hid her head in Miss Beaufort's bosom.

Mary's heart throbbed, her cheeks grew pale, and almost unconsciously she wished to stop the tide of Miss Dundas's confidence.

"Dear Euphemia!" answered she, "your regard for this interesting exile is very praiseworthy. But beware of----." She hesitated; a remorseful twitch in her own breast stayed the warning that was rising to her tongue; and blushing at a motive she could not at the instant a.s.sign to friendship, selfishness, or to any interest she would not avow to herself, she touched the cheek of Euphemia with her quivering lips.

Euphemia had finished the sentence for her, and raising her head, exclaimed, "What should I fear in esteeming Mr. Constantine? Is he not the most captivating creature in the world! And for his person!

Oh, Mary, he is so beautiful, that when the library is filled with the handsomest men in town, the moment Constantine enters, their reign is over. I compare them with his G.o.dlike figure, and I feel as one looking at the sun; all other objects appear dim and shapeless."

"I hope," returned Mary,--pressing her own forehead with her hand, her head beginning to ache strangely,--"that Mr. Constantine does not owe your friendship to his fine person. I think his mental qualities are more deserving of such a gift."

"Don't look so severe, dear Mary!" cried Miss Dundas, observing her contracting brow; "are you displeased with me?"

Mary's displeasure was at the austerity of her own words, and not at her auditor. Raising her eyes with a smile, she gently replied, "I do not mean, my dear girl, to be severe; but I would wish, for the honor of our s.e.x, that the objects which attract either our love or our compa.s.sion should have something more precious than mere exterior beauty to engage our interest."

"Well, I will soon be satisfied," cried Euphemia, in a gayer tone, as they drove through Grosvenor Gate; "we all know that Constantine is sensible and accomplished: he writes poetry like an angel, both in French and Italian. I have hundreds of mottoes composed by him; one of them, Mary, is on the work-box I gave you yesterday; and, what is more, I will ask him to-morrow why that old gentleman called him _My lord?_ It he be a lord!" exclaimed she.

"What then?" inquired the eloquent eyes of Mary.

"Don't look so impertinent, my dear," cried the now animated beauty: "I positively won't say another word to you today."

Miss Beaufort's headache became so painful, she rejoiced when Euphemia ceased and the carriage drew up to Lady Dundas's door.

A night of almost unremitted sleep performed such good effects on the general condition of General Butzou, that Dr. Cavendish thought his patient so much better as to sanction his hoping the best consequences from a frequent repet.i.tion of air and exercise. When the drive and walk had accordingly been repeated the following day, Thaddeus left his friend to his maps, and little Nanny's attendance, and once more took the way to Harley Street.

He found only Miss Dundas with her sister in the study. Mary (against her will, which she opposed because it was her will) had gone out shopping with Miss Dorothy and Lady Dundas.

Miss Dundas left the room the moment she had finished her lessons.

Delighted at being _tete-a-tete_ with the object of her romantic fancies, Euphemia forgot that she was to act the retreating character of Madame d'Arblay's heroine; and shutting her book the instant Diana disappeared, all at once opened her attack on his confidence.

To her eager questions, which the few words of the general had excited, the count afforded no other reply than that his poor friend knew not what he said, having been a long time in a state of mental derangement.

This explanation caused a momentary mortification in the imaginative Euphemia; but her busy mind was nimble in its erection of airy castles, and she rallied in a moment with the idea that "he might be more than a lord." At any rate, let him be what he may, he charmed her; and he had much ado to parry the increasing boldness of her speeches, without letting her see they were understood.

"You are very diffident, Mr. Constantine," cried she, looking down.

"If I consider you worthy of my friendship, why should _you_ make disqualifying a.s.sertions?"

"Every man, madam," returned Thaddeus, bowing as he rose from his chair, "must be diffident of deserving the honor of your notice."

"There is no man living," replied she, "to whom I would offer my friendship but yourself."

Thaddeus bit his lip; he knew not what to answer. Bowing a second time, he stretched out his hand and drew his hat towards him.

Euphemia's eyes followed the movement.

"You are in a prodigious haste, Mr. Constantine!"

"I know I intrude, madam; and I have promised to be with my sick friend at an early hour."

"Well, you may go, since you are obliged," returned the pretty Euphemia, rising, and smiling sweetly as she laid one hand on his arm and put the other into her tucker. She drew out a little white leather _souvenir_, marked on the back in gold letters with the words, "_Toujours cher_;" and slipping it into his hand, "There, receive that, _monsignor_, or whatever else you may be called, and retain it as the first pledge of Euphemia Dundas's friendship."

Thaddeus colored as he took it; and again having recourse to the convenient reply of a bow, left the room in embarra.s.sed vexation.

There was an indelicacy in this absolutely wooing conduct of Miss Euphemia which, notwithstanding her beauty and the softness that was its vehicle, filled him with the deepest disgust. He could not trace real affection in her words or manner; and that any woman, instigated by a mere whim, should lay aside the maidenly reserves of her s.e.x, and actually court his regard, surprised whilst it impelled him to loathe her.

They who adopt Euphemia's sentiments,--and, alas! there are some,-- can be little aware of the conclusion which society infer from such intemperate behavior. The mistaken creature who, either at the impulsion of her own disposition or by the influence of example, is induced to despise the guard of modesty, literally "forsakes the guide of her youth" and leaves herself open to every attack which man can devise against her. By levelling the barrier raised by nature, she herself exposes the stronghold of virtue, and may find, too late for recovery, that what modesty has abandoned is not long spared by honor.

Euphemia's affected attachment suggested to Thaddeus a few unpleasant recollections respecting the fervent and unequivocal pa.s.sion of Lady Sara. Though guilty, it sprung from a headlong ardor of disposition which formed at once the error and its palliation. He saw that love was not welcomed by her (at least he thought so) as a plaything, but struggled against as with a foe. He had witnessed her tortures; he pitied them, and to render her happy, would gladly have made any sacrifice short of his conscience. Too well a.s.sured of being all the world to Lady Sara, the belief that Miss Euphemia liked him only from idleness, caprice, and contradiction, caused him to repay her overtures with decided contempt.

When he arrived at home, he threw on his table the pocket-book whose unambiguous motto made him scorn her, and almost himself for being the object of such folly. Looking round his humble room, whose wicker-chairs, oil-cloth floor, and uncurtained windows announced anything but elegance: "Poor Euphemia!" said he; "how would you be dismayed were the indigent Constantine to really take you at your word, and bring you home to a habitation like this!"

CHAPTER x.x.x.

INFLUENCES OF CHARACTER.

The recital of the preceding scene, which was communicated to Miss Beaufort by Euphemia, filled her with still more doubting thoughts.

Mary could discover no reason why the old gentleman's mental derangement should dignify his friend with t.i.tles he had never borne.

She remarked to herself that his answer to Euphemia was evasive; she remembered his emotion and apology on seeing Mr. C. Kemble in Adelbert; and uniting with these facts his manners and acquirements, so far beyond the charges of any subordinate rank, she could finally retain no doubt of his being at least well born.

Thus this mysterious Constantine continued to occupy her hourly thoughts during the s.p.a.ce of two months, in which time she had full opportunity to learn much of a character with whom she a.s.sociated almost every day. At Lady Tinemouth's (one of whose evening guests she frequently became) she beheld him disenc.u.mbered of that armor of reserve which he usually wore in Harley Street.

In the circle of the countess, Mary saw him welcomed like an idolized being before whose cheering influence all frowns and clouds must disappear. When he entered, the smile resumed its seat on the languid features of Lady Tinemouth; Miss Egerton's eye lighted up to keener archness; Lady Sara's Circa.s.sian orbs floated in pleasure; and for Mary herself, her breast heaved, her cheeks glowed, her hands trembled, a quick sigh fluttered in her bosom; and whilst she remained in his presence, she believed that happiness had lost its usual evanescent property, and become tangible, to hold and press upon her heart.

Mary, who investigated the cause of these tremors on her pillow, bedewed it with delicious though bitter tears, when her alarmed soul whispered that she nourished for this amiable foreigner "a something than friendship dearer."

"Ah! is it come to this?" cried she, pressing down her saturated eyelids with her hand. "Am I at last to love a man who, perhaps, never casts a thought on me? How despicable shall I become in my own eyes!"

The pride of woman puts this charge to her taken heart--that heart which seems tempered of the purest clay, and warmed with the fire of heaven; that tender and disinterested heart asks as its appeal--What is love? Is it not an admiration of all that is beautiful in nature and in the soul? Is it not a union of loveliness with truth? Is it not a pa.s.sion whose sole object is the rapture of contemplating the supreme beauty of this combined character?

"Where, then," cried the enthusiastic Mary, "where is the shame that can be annexed to my loving Constantine? If it be honorable to love delineated excellence, it must be equally so to love it when embodied in a human shape. Such it is in Constantine; and if love be the reflected light of virtue, I may cease to arraign myself of that which otherwise I would have scorned. Therefore, Constantine," cried she, raising her clasped hands, whilst renewed tears streamed over her face, "I will love thee! I will pray for thy happiness, though its partner should be Euphemia Dundas."

Mary's eager imagination would not allow her to perceive those obstacles in the shapes of pride and prudence, which would stand in the way of his obtaining Euphemia's hand; its light showed to her only a rival in the person of the little beauty; but from her direct confidence she continued to retreat with abhorrence.

Had Euphemia been more deserving of Constantine, Miss Beaufort believed she would have been less reluctant to hear that she loved him. But Mary could not avoid seeing that Miss E. Dundas possessed little to ensure connubial comfort, if mere beauty and accidental flights of good humor were not to be admitted into the scale. She was weak in understanding, timid in principle, absurd in almost every opinion she adopted; and as for love, true, dignified, respectable love, she knew nothing of the sentiment.

Whilst Miss Beaufort meditated on this meagre schedule of her rival's merits, the probability that even such a man as Constantine might sacrifice himself to flattery and to splendor stung her to the soul.

The more she reflected on it, the more she conceived it possible.

Euphemia was considered a beauty of the day; her affectation of refined prettiness pleased many, and might charm Constantine: she was mistress of fifty thousand pounds, and did not esteem it necessary to conceal from her favorite the empire he had acquired. Perhaps there was generosity in this openness? If so, what might it not effect on a grateful disposition? or, rather, (her mortified heart murmured in the words of her aunt Dorothy,) "how might it not operate on the mind of one of that s.e.x, which, at the best, is as often moved by caprice as by feeling."