"He mentioned it. Mrs. Palma, I thought he looked weary and jaded; as if he needed a rest, rather than a journey."
"Erle is never weary. His nerves are steel, and he will speedily forget his court-house cares in Mrs. Carew's charming conversation."
"But she is not in Washington?"
"She told me yesterday she would go there this afternoon, and showed me the most superb maize-coloured satin just received from Worth, which she intends wearing to-morrow evening at the French Ambassador's ball, or reception. You know she is very fascinating, and though Erle thinks little about women, I really believe she will succeed in driving law books, for a little while at least, out of his cool clear head. My dear, I am going to write a short note. Will you please direct Hattie to bring my opera hat, cloak, and glasses?"
With inexpressible relief, Regina heard the heavy silk rustle across the hall, when she took her departure, and rejoiced in the assurance that there was no one to intrude upon her solitude.
How she wished that she could fly to some desert, where undiscovered she might cry aloud, in the great agony that possessed her heart.
The thought that her guardian had hastened away to accompany that grey-eyed, golden-haired witch of a woman to Washington was intolerably bitter; and as she contemplated the possibility, nay the probability, of his speedy marriage, a wild longing seized her to make her escape, and avoid the sight of such a spectacle.
When she recalled his proud, handsome, composed face, and tried to imagine him the husband of Mrs. Carew, bending over, caressing her, the girl threw her arms on his writing desk, and sunk her face upon them, as if to shut out the torturing vision.
She knew that he was singularly reserved and undemonstrative; she had never seen him fondle or caress anything, and the bare thought that his stern marble lips would some day seek and press that woman's scarlet mouth made her shiver with a pang that was almost maddening.
How cruelly mocking that he should take her favourite snowy hyacinths to offer them to Mrs. Carew! Did his keen insight penetrate the folly she had suffered to grow up in her own heart, and had he coolly resorted to this method of teaching her its hopelessness?