“I hope such a fancy will never take possession of me,” he said. “I shall not leave England again. I find no place like it.”
“The dark-eyed daughters of sunny Spain do not charm you, then, Ronald?”
His face flushed slightly.
“No,” he replied; “I like the women of our own land best.”
“You have seen Miss Severn. What do you think of her?”
“She is very beautiful—wonderfully improved,” replied Sir Ronald; and the great pity was that they did not there and then trust each other. Sir Ronald took the idea that Kenelm was in love with Lady Hermione; Kenelm believed his friend to be in love with Miss Severn.
One word more, and our story can resume its course. There was yet another link in the chain.
Clarice Severn had always preferred Sir Ronald to every one else in the wide world. In her girlhood she had mistaken his kindness for love. Now that she was a woman she vowed to herself that that love should by some means or other be hers. She was no tragedy queen, no woman capable of poisoning or stabbing or drowning a rival, should one appear; but in a world-scheming kind of way she was ready to do anything that would secure his love for herself.
On the morning that she met him at Lord Lorriston’s, Clarice admired him as much as he, in his turn, admired Lady Hermione. She saw that Sir Ronald was inclined to admire the earl’s daughter, and she laid many little plans in her own mind to keep them apart.
“I am more beautiful than Hermione,” she thought to herself, in all probability; “richer, quite as well born. Why should he prefer her to me?”