"But you will be very occupied with your friends the Molyneuxes. You are come to Paris to meet them, are you not?" and involuntarily she glanced at Miss Molyneux.
"Marie!" he whispered,—then looking towards the stage, as if he were alluding to the opera which they had just seen, he repeated aloud, "The words, 'Sconto col sangue mio l'amor che posi in te,' harmonise so well with the air."
"Yes, 'A che la morte,' it is a melody so sweet," she answered, endeavouring to follow his example in seeming to talk of the music; but a bright flush spread itself over her face as she now heard him utter the words which before she only imagined she saw his lips silently form.
If such moments could only be lasting! But—
"The brightest still the fleetest."
There was a general movement in the house; the performance was over and the audience all prepared to depart. Lord Barkley came forward and offered his arm to Marie, saying, "You must allow an old man, Mademoiselle, to have the pleasure of escorting you to your carriage, and so give him an opportunity of becoming somewhat better acquainted with you, and Edmund will no doubt take good care of my old friend Molyneux's fair daughter."
"Edmund" did not look delighted with this arrangement, but there was no help for it now; so with as good a grace as he could command in the midst of his annoyance, he obeyed the parental injunction, and took Miss Molyneux down.
Meanwhile, Marie timidly laid her hand on Lord Barkley's arm, as she tried to get a sidelong glimpse at his face, to see if he looked very sternly at her, and she felt a little reassured on finding that his countenance was quite the contrary of stern. His age might have been about sixty, and his hair and moustache were quite white. He had full ruddy cheeks, rather small blue eyes, full lips, and a thick nose, not quite guiltless of a suspicious vermilion tint. The expression of his face was altogether more that of a good-natured, jolly old bon vivant, than of a severe, unrelenting parent; and Marie would not have been dissatisfied with the impression which she made on him, had she known that as he handed her into the carriage he said to himself, "By Jove! I can't find fault with Edmund's taste in preferring this pretty, coy little creature, to that stiff, Juno-like beauty. If I were a young man myself, I should be sure to fall in love with the little one! Therefore, I am doubly sorry to be obliged to thwart the poor fellow; but I must do it for the sake of the family as well as his own. He would be a poor man all his life if I let him marry without a large fortune."
As the father and son walked home, the former said, "Edmund, my boy, I have just a few words to say to you about Miss Arbi. I think her very charming."
"So I perceived, sir," interposed Edmund, drily; "you lingered over the putting-on of her cloak with the courtly grace of a Leicester."