(3) "Light of Nature,"—chapter on Judgment.—See the very ingenious illustration of doubt, "whether the part is always greater than the whole,"—taken from time, or rather eternity.
CHAPTER VI.
Agreeably to the usual custom in great houses, as soon as I arrived at Compton I was conducted to my room to adjust my toilet or compose my spirits by solitude,—it wanted an hour to dinner. I had not, however, been thus left ten minutes before the door opened and Trevanion himself (as I would fain still call him) stood before me. Most cordial were his greeting and welcome; and seating himself by my side, he continued to converse in his peculiar way—bluntly eloquent and carelessly learned— till the half-hour bell rang. He talked on Australia, the Wakefield system, cattle, books, his trouble in arranging his library, his schemes for improving his property and embellishing his grounds, his delight to find my father look so well, his determination to see a great deal of him, whether his old college friend would or not; he talked, in short, of everything except politics and his own past career,—showing only his soreness in that silence. But—independently of the mere work of time— he looked yet more worn and jaded in his leisure than he had done in the full tide of business; and his former abrupt quickness of manner now seemed to partake of feverish excitement. I hoped that my father would see much of him, for I felt that the weary mind wanted soothing.
Just as the second bell rang I entered the drawing-room. There were at least twenty guests present,—each guest, no doubt, some planet of fashion or fame, with satellites of its own. But I saw only two forms distinctly: first, Lord Castleton, conspicuous with star and garter,— somewhat ampler and portlier in proportions, and with a frank dash of gray in the silky waves of his hair, but still as pre-eminent as ever for that beauty, the charm of which depends less than any other upon youth, arising, as it does, from a felicitous combination of bearing and manner, and that exquisite suavity of expression which steals into the heart and pleases so much that it be comes a satisfaction to admire! Of Lord Castleton, indeed, it might be said, as of Alcibiades, "that he was beautiful at every age." I felt my breath come thick, and a mist passed before my eyes as Lord Castleton led me through the crowd, and the radiant vision of Fanny Trevanion—how altered, and how dazzling!—burst upon me.
I felt the light touch of that hand of snow; but no guilty thrill shot through my veins. I heard the voice, musical as ever,—lower than it was once, and more subdued in its key, but steadfast and untremulous: it was no longer the voice that made "my soul plant itself in the ears." (1) The event was over, and I knew that the dream had fled from the waking world forever.
"Another old friend!" as Lady Ulverstone came forth from a little group of children, leading one fine boy of nine years old, while one, two or three years younger, clung to her gown. "Another old friend! and," added Lady Ulverstone, after the first kind greetings, "two new ones when the old are gone." The slight melancholy left the voice as, after presenting to me the little viscount, she drew forward the more bashful Lord Albert, who indeed had something of his grandsire and namesake's look of refined intelligence in his brow and eyes.
The watchful tact of Lord Castleton was quick in terminating whatever embarrassment might belong to these introductions, as, leaning lightly on my arm, he drew me forward and presented me to the guests more immediately in our neighborhood, who seemed by their earnest cordiality to have been already prepared for the introduction.
Dinner was now announced, and I welcomed that sense of relief and segregation with which one settles into one's own "particular" chair at your large miscellaneous entertainment.
I stayed three days at that house. How truly had Trevanion said that Fanny would make "an excellent great lady." What perfect harmony between her manners and her position! just retaining enough of the girl's seductive gayety and bewitching desire to please, to soften the new dignity of bearing she had unconsciously assumed,—less, after all, as great lady, than as wife and mother; with a fine breeding, perhaps a little languid and artificial as compared with her lord's,—which sprang, fresh and healthful, wholly from nature,—but still so void of all the chill of condescension or the subtle impertinence that belongs to that order of the inferior noblesse which boasts the name of "exclusives;" with what grace, void of prudery, she took the adulation of the flatterers, turning from them to her children, or escaping lightly to Lord Castleton, with an ease that drew round her at once the protection of hearth and home!
And certainly Lady Castleton was more incontestably beautiful than Fanny
Trevanion had been.