“Duchess of ———!” repeated Lumley, absently; “well, I will go and present myself. I see she is growing tired of the signor. I will sound her as to the ducal impressions, my dear lord.”
“Do—I dare not,” replied the father; “she is an excellent girl, but heiresses are always contradictory. It was very foolish to deprive me of all control over her fortune. Come and see me again soon, Lumley. I suppose you are going abroad?”
“No, I shall settle in England; but of my prospects and plans more hereafter.”
With this, Lumley quietly glided away to Florence. There was something in Ferrers that was remarkable from its very simplicity. His clear, sharp features, with the short hair and high brow—the absolute plainness of his dress, and the noiseless, easy, self-collected calm of all his motions, made a strong contrast to the showy Italian, by whose side he now stood. Florence looked up at him with some little surprise at his intrusion.
“Ah, you don’t recollect me!” said Lumley, with his pleasant laugh. “Faithless Imogen, after all your vows of constancy! Behold your Alonzo!
‘The worms they crept in and the worms they crept out.’
“Don’t you remember how you trembled when I told you that true story, as we
‘Conversed as we sat on the green”?
“Oh!” cried Florence, “it is indeed you, my dear cousin—my dear Lumley! What an age since we parted!”
“Don’t talk of age—it is an ugly word to a man of my years. Pardon, signor, if I disturb you.”