and made a little effort for his object. But he had come to see Her, flattering himself with vain dreams of securing her to himself—of wandering by her side through those garden-paths, of keeping near her whenever she moved—and the dream had intoxicated him more deeply than even he himself was aware of. Now he woke to his sober wits with a chill of mortification and disappointment not to be expressed. He stood silent, following her with his eyes as she glided about from one corner to the other of the crowded room. He had neither eyes nor ears for anything else. Beautiful as she had always been, she was lovelier than ever today, with her fair head uncovered and unadorned, her beautiful hair glancing in the gleams of sunshine, her tiny hands ungloved. Poor Vincent drew near a window, when it dawned upon his troubled perception that he was standing amidst all those chattering, laughing people, a silent statue of disappointment and dismay, and from that little refuge watched her as she made her progress. And, alas! Lady Western assured everybody that they were “
so kind” to come—she distributed her smiles, her kind words, everywhere. She beamed upon the old men and the young, the handsome and the stupid, with equal sweetness. After a while, as he stood watching, Vincent began to melt in his heart. She was hostess—she had the party’s pleasure to think of, not her own. If he could but help her, bring himself to her notice again in some other way! Vincent made another step out of his window, and looked out eagerly with shy scrutiny. Nobody wanted his help. They stared at him, and whispered questions who he was. When he at length nerved himself to speak to his next neighbour, he met with a courteous response and no more. Society was not cruel, or repulsive, or severely exclusive, but simply did not know him, could not make out who he was, and was busy talking that conversation of a limited sphere full of personal allusions into which no stranger could enter. Instead of the ineffable hour he expected, an embarrassing, unbearable tedium was the lot of the poor Dissenting minister by himself among the beauty, wit, and fashion of Carlingford. He would have stolen away but for the forlorn hope that things might mend—that Lady Western might return, and that the sunshine he had dreamed of would yet fall upon him. But no such happiness came to the unfortunate young minister. After a while, a perfectly undistinguished middle-aged individual charitably engaged
Mr. Vincent in conversation; and as they talked, and while the young man’s eager wistful eyes followed into every new combination of the little crowd that one fair figure which had bewitched him, it became apparent that the company was flowing forth into the garden. At last Vincent stopped short in the languid answer he was making to his respectable interlocutor with a sudden start and access of impatience. The brilliant room had suddenly clouded over. She had joined her guests outside. With bitterness, and a sharp pang at his heart, Vincent looked round and wondered to find himself in the house, in the company, from which she had gone. What business had he there? No link of connection existed between him and this little world of unknown people except herself. She had brought him here; she alone knew even so much of him as his name. He had not an inch of ground to stand on in the little alien assembly when she was not there. He broke off his conversation with his unknown sympathiser abruptly, and rushed out, meaning to leave the place. But somehow, fascinated still, in a hundred different moods a minute, when he got outside, he too lingered about the paths, where he continually met with groups and stray couples who stared at him, and wondered again, sometimes not inaudibly, who he was. He met her at last under the shadow of the lime-trees with a train of girls about her, and a following of eager male attendants. When he came forward lonely to make his farewell, with a look in which he meant to unite a certain indignation and reproach with still chivalrous devotion, the unconscious beauty met him with unabated sweetness, held out her hand as before, and smiled the most radiant of smiles.
“Are you going to leave us already?” she said, in a tone which half persuaded the unlucky youth to stay till the last moment, and swallow all his mortifications. “So sorry you must go away so soon! and I wanted to show you my pictures too. Another time, I hope, we may have better fortune. When you come to me again, you must really be at leisure, and have no other engagements. Goodbye! It was so kind of you to come, and I am so sorry you can’t stay!”
In another minute the green door had opened and closed, the fairy vision was gone, and poor Vincent stood in Grange Lane between the two blank lines of garden-wall, come back to the common daylight after a week’s vain wandering in the enchanted grounds, half stupefied, half maddened by the disappointment and downfall. He made a momentary pause at the door, gulped down the big indignant sigh that rose in his throat, and, with a quickened step and a heightened colour, retraced his steps along a road which no longer gleamed with any rosy reflections, but was harder, more real, more matter-of-fact than ever it had looked before. What a fool he had been, to be led into such a false position!—to be cheated of his peace, and seduced from his duty, and intoxicated into such absurdities of hope, all by the gleam of a bright eye, and the sound of a sweet voice! He who had never known the weakness before, to cover himself with ridicule, and compromise his dignity so entirely for the sake of the first beautiful woman who smiled upon
