Days passed after the events related in the last chapter, and Tremenhere did not make his appearance in Lady Ripley's apartments, at l'Hotel Mirabeau; to a person of Lady Dora's despotic temper, his conduct was maddening. He never lost an opportunity of uttering words leading her to believe his affections entangled beyond remedy; no one could look at him without seeing that he suffered keenly from some mental cause, and something of recent occurrence; therefore, it was not Minnie's loss—but this she would not permit herself to think for a moment—no, 'twas herself; consequently his manner of acting was the more inexplicable. He never sought her, but when they met; he seemed unable to controul his feelings, his avowal of love; but this was not all she would have. She would have him throw himself, a slave enchained before her, beseeching her love, to loosen his bonds, or rivet them for ever. In her impatient rage she hated all, even Lord Randolph at last, for the very friendship he had for Tremenhere. It was this, she thought, which, acting on an overstrained (to her) idea of honour, prevented his admitting all, and claiming a return. Her every thought became bitterness. Nothing is nearer love than hate; they are two extremes a child's tiny hand might unite. Thus, then, she fostered in absence a bitter hatred towards Tremenhere, which melted like a waxen flower in the sun when he approached, and became quite as impressionable, capable of any feeling he might stamp there in its place. In her rage she looked around for some one wherewith to wound him, and the thought after appeared in the person of Marmaduke Burton, who returned to Paris from a long tour in Italy and elsewhere. Coward-like, he had fled at first, then, not finding himself pursued, he stopped, and, looking around, thought he had deserted the field too soon.

It was at a ball Lady Dora met him, nearly a week after the events of the past chapter. He stood for a moment uncertain how to act. She knew Tremenhere was there; they had just spoken, and he had passed on. In an instant she saw her advantage—for so she deemed it; and, holding out a hand, cordially welcomed Burton's return amongst them. Her mother, among others, had almost dropped the acquaintance, in consequence of the coward slur attached to his name; but so completely was Lady Dora mistress of all around her, that her mother, though still doubting the policy of it, remembering how decidedly Lord Randolph had cut him, was fain to receive him politely when Lady Dora came up, leaning on his arm.

"I will bend him now!" she thought, as she reflected upon the only one occupying her mind. As she moved through the rooms, she met Lord Randolph, who was seeking her.

He started: Marmaduke looked embarrassed, and then attempted to smile; but the other was one of those to whom wealth was as dross, compared with honour. All the weaker parts of his character were sinking to the bottom, and the more sterling ones rising to the surface. Possibly it was from constant association with so noble a mind as Tremenhere's—and Lady Lysson's, too. Be it as it may, the struggling artist was more to him than the wealthy but dishonourable Burton. Without glancing at him, he held out an arm to Lady Dora, saying—

"Will you take my arm? I have been seeking you; Lady Lysson is anxious to speak to you."

"Thank you," she replied with hauteur; "but you must see I am otherwise engaged—I am going to dance with Mr. Burton. Allow me to recall to your memory, an old friend."

Lord Randolph took not the slightest notice. This cool reprehension of her conduct, the unworthy motive of which she was thus doubly made to feel, drove her frantic, and she turned aside with a—

"Come, Mr. Burton—we shall be late for this deux temps!"

Lord Randolph moved another way, and looked anxiously about him. He soon perceived the object of his search, as Tremenhere's tall figure rose before him.

"Come along, Tremenhere," he said, familiarly linking his arm in his—"I want to show you somebody."

"Any one I know?" asked the other unsuspectingly.

"A very pretty girl," replied Lord Randolph.

"Indeed! But where is Lady Dora?"

"Lady Dora?—oh, there!" And he pointed her out, where she stood with Burton. A thrill passed through Tremenhere's frame, and the other felt it: the former felt all the delicacy and thought which had made Lord Randolph take him thus boldly by the arm, to publish his feelings towards him to his cousin; and also leading him, as a jockey takes his horse up and shows him what he has to overleap, lest he should shy at the difficulties suddenly placed before him.

"Gray!" exclaimed he—using a term hitherto never uttered in his proud humility—"you are a good, generous, noble fellow; I thank you!" And he grasped his hand.

These few words were volumes from him, and the other felt them so. As they moved on, not another word passed on the subject, and shortly afterwards the two met Lady Dora and Burton; and Tremenhere's countenance was free and unclouded, as he stopped and reminded her of a prior engagement for the following dance. Burton looked cowed and uneasy: her rage almost broke through the bounds of politeness, for in her heart she despised Burton, and now doubly so when her revenge had failed, and she saw herself abased in the abasement of her protegÉ. She was almost rude in speech as she acknowledged the engagement, and appointed where he might find her, this valse concluded.

And during these heavy hours poor Minnie sat at home in her sorrow. She had refused to leave the house since the day she met Lady Dora and Tremenhere; nothing could persuade her but that he loved her cousin: he might regret her sad fate, but he loved Dora. She urged Skaife to give him the proof of his mother's fame—of his own legitimacy; but Skaife had resolved that she alone should lay this treasure, in reconciliation, at her husband's feet. Moreover, Skaife was a man of the world, and though he knew Tremenhere now loved only Minnie, he had justly read her cousin and Lady Ripley; and he knew man as he too generally is, easily led by his vanity and a woman's love, even against his better reason and judgment. He saw Lady Dora loved Tremenhere, and felt assured only the "poor artist" stood between her love and pride. Once master of the manor-house he would answer for nothing, and like a wise man, resolved to spare him the temptation, and Minnie the pain, of seeing a fruitless effort to forget her, in an impossible marriage.

We left Lady Dora dancing with Marmaduke Burton; she did so, but it was spiritless. She had played a game unpleasing to herself, and the success had not been all she hoped for. Tremenhere seemed perfectly indifferent; and when she rejoined Lady Lysson, a freezing manner towards herself, and complete ignorance of Marmaduke Burton's existence, were the things which they met, as she approached, leaning on his arm. To make her still more uncomfortable, she saw Tremenhere and Lord Randolph, as she passed through an inner saloon, laughing and talking with several ladies in the most unconcerned manner possible. At last the dance was proclaimed for which she was engaged to the former. Had she been behind him and his friend, as they stood unobserved by her in a doorway, watching her, she would not have felt perfectly comfortable. Lord Randolph's face was severe, but in nowise sad, as he said to the other—

"Tremenhere, that woman does not love me—better said, she rather dislikes me. Look at her now. What she has done this night, has opened my eyes to a fact some time suspected, that another motive than even indifferent liking has induced her to accept me. She has some hidden thought, or hidden affection in her heart, and she is struggling with it, for whom I know not; but to me she is indifferent."

"Perhaps you judge hastily," answered Tremenhere. "She has her oddity of temper, doubtless, like all women. Let time, he is my greatest ally, decide every thing; he has means of bringing hidden thought to light, of which our puny imaginings can form no idea. I must leave you; I am engaged this Schottische to her ladyship," and, loosening his arm, he crossed over to where she stood with Burton. "May I claim my promised Schottische?" he asked, offering an arm.

It was an immense relief for her to leave Burton. She felt many had looked coldly upon her that night. A man is not publicly branded slanderer and coward without the titles clinging to him, more especially among an English set, acquainted with most of the persons implicated in the affair. She expected, made up her mind to a few bitter words, or implied doubts of her motives in having chosen Burton for her cavalier; but though Tremenhere read her perfectly, he was a sealed book to her, without an effort, or any thing to make her say, "He is playing a part." He was perfectly unembarrassed in his manner—attentive, without being gallant—gentle, without any thing overstrained—full of that quiet, unostentatious wit which charms so much. She had never seen him to more advantage; and every moment she felt his superiority over her own narrow thoughts and mind; and she felt disgusted with the part she had been playing. A word would have made her express all her overtaxed feelings to him, but he gave her no opportunity; she was as an agreeable partner and stranger to him—nothing more. The dance was over; he evinced no desire to leave her, no particular wish to retain her near him; he was the impersonation of a thoroughly idle, indifferent man. As they passed near Lady Lysson, a fan gently touched his arm.

"Amidst more youthful engagements, don't forget you are engaged to me for a contredanse," she said. "When a man solicits a thing, I hold it as a point of conscience to make him accomplish it; you have urged me to this folly—I wish to fulfil my kismet."

"I have not forgotten it, Lady Lysson; I am counting the moments by my stop-watch."

Lady Dora would have given worlds to hear him speak to her in such a tone. There was a total change in the intonation when he addressed Lady Lysson. From one to the other it seemed to say, "I know you, and you know me; there exists a freemasonry between us."

And when she stood in the same quadrille with Lord Randolph as partner, she felt it still more keenly. There was a freedom between Tremenhere and Lady Lysson to which she never had attained, though related to him—it was the familiarity of kindred spirits.

She and her mother quitted early. There was a reception at the embassy this same evening, to which they were going. Before doing so, however, they returned home, as it was close at hand, and Lady Dora entered her room to re-arrange her dress, nominally; but, in fact, to collect her shattered nerves by a few moments quiet. Accordingly, dismissing her maid, she sat alone. There was a large mirror opposite the chair where she sat. After surveying herself some time in the distance, she rose, and pacing the room with her proud, queenly air, stood before it, glowing in beauty. Never mirror gave back any thing more richly beautiful than her face; her eyes of dazzling fire—eyes to make a man bow down in wonder before their power—and then the long heavy ringlet of dark chestnut falling across the heaving bosom, to the waist. She surveyed her beauty, not in petty vanity, but in wonder herself, that so perfect a work of nature had not awed that man to love her, and confess his love—how could he resist her? and loving her, as assuredly he did. With this thought a grim doubt arose, like a breath passing over that mirror, to shade her beauty—almost unconsciously she dropped on a seat opposite the glass, which her eyes never quitted; and, as if involuntarily, her hands unclasped the massive bracelets one by one, and laid them on a table beside her. Her maid had placed a bouquet of rich damask roses, looped round the stem with a string of gems, on the side of her beautiful head; for she was not simple in her dress, as Minnie—a more gorgeous style suited her best. Her fingers, though unused to tasks like these, unfastened them, and they dropped from her hand on the floor—all, save the rich dress of antique moire, lay around her; and then the girl, unladen by gems, unadorned but by nature, dispirited, broken-hearted, at that nature's bidding covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly; she felt he could not love her,—to have been so calm beneath her bitter insult in choosing his cousin's society, she felt how much, how madly she loved him; and the proud Lady Dora sobbed in her bitterness. "An artist's wife! the wife of a nameless, illegitimate man! I would be any thing he might become, if he but loved me! But he does!" she cried with sudden energy; "he must! His every word betokened it at once; this one fatal night cannot have made him hate me! He does, and I will prove him! Less would be madness, a longer suspense, the working of that hollow pride which has made me what I am!" When her maid tapped to say, "Lady Ripley was waiting!" she found Lady Dora pale, and with the tears still on her cheek, incapable of aught but an essay at rest on her feverish couch. Her mother was not unused of late to her whims, though she never had carried them to so much excess. It was her own fault. Had she trained this fair plant otherwise, it would have reared itself in cultured beauty towards heaven; as it was rotten at the root, it would either decay from its own want of power, or trail worthless on the ground, only fit to be torn from its parent earth as a weed—nothing more.