IV.
"Nicholas, did you ever tell your wife of your engagement to Amelia Grant?" asked George Holston, abusing the occasion of a visit from his adopted brother by asking unpleasant questions.
Vane knocked the ashes off his cigar and answered curtly, "No."
"Why not?"
"Because it was a disagreeable subject; because the matter was dead and buried years before I saw Mary; because I didn't choose to speak of it."
"I think you made a mistake."
"I don't."
"I do; and I will tell you why, though you don't wish to hear. A man can't put too many barriers between himself and temptation. You are now brought unexpectedly into daily intercourse with Amelia. Long after actual love dies out, personal influence continues dangerous. If you had told your wife of your former connection, it would have acted as a useful check upon you, unconsciously, of course."
"I need no check," answered Vane in a tone of annoyance, "beyond my love for Mary, and my distrust of Lady Sackvil. Mary knows I had an old love affair, but does not know with whom. You need not disturb yourself. I know Amelia Grant of old."
"I doubt it. You exaggerate her faults. She is by no means deficient in good qualities, if she chose to use them. She is a woman ruined by bad training; educated systematically to selfishness, vanity, self-will. She is the most worldly woman of her years I have ever known; but her most dangerous trait, as accompanying so many faults, is the yearning for better things that makes her interesting. She thinks I dislike her. On the contrary, I find her very attractive, though I am determined to do nothing to induce her to prolong her stay with us."
"I don't know any thing about her capacities for good," Vane remarked dryly. "I know that we had not been engaged twenty-four hours before she was receiving Lord Sackvil's attentions freely. At the end of three days of befooling, I put an end to the farce and left the coast clear for his lordship. Flora knows all about this, of course?"
"Evidently not. They were never together during their girlhood. Besides, Amelia never reveals any thing discreditable to herself, you may be sure. Keep out of her way, Vane; she has gifts which are especially attractive to you. But, by Jupiter! it is rather an insult to fancy that any one can fascinate you after your wife, who is nearer perfection than any woman I ever saw."
"Upon my word!" said Vane, glad of a diversion, "these are agreeable sentiments. I think if any body has ground for jealousy, it is poor me. I have not the slightest doubt that Mary will eventually be canonized, but I'll thank you to defer all sentiments of veneration until then."
At this moment a servant announced that Mrs. Holston and Lady Sackvil were in the gondola waiting for Captain Vane.
Nicholas took his hat and rose. "Keep your eyes and your wisdom to yourself, George," he said, in answer to Holston's glance of amusement. "It is a bad thing to be wiser than your day and generation."
"So Cassandra found," replied Holston; "but she was right, for all that."