And Viscount Henry Rivington saw through it all and smiled.
CHAPTER III.
“MY GOD! ALL IS AT AN END.”
Sir Harold Annesley was the most envied of men among his kind. He was young, wealthy and famous; possessed of a splendid physique, and the representative of an old and honorable line. There was no blot on the escutcheon of the Annesleys; the men had ever been noble and brave, and the women good and virtuous.
In addition to these splendid attributes and honors, Sir Harold had won the fairest and loveliest woman in all England. Dukes and princes had sighed vainly at her feet. She had been the beauty of two seasons, and had nearly turned the brains of a score of men, but to one and all was Lady Elaine the same. Kindly and gracious, but as cold as an icicle when there was the danger of an avowal.
Some of these disappointed lovers declared that she was a coquette; others that she had no human passions—no heart.
At last her father, my lord of Seabright, spoke to her seriously upon the subject of marriage.
“It must come some day, Elaine. Surely among all your acquaintances you must have some preference?”
“No,” the girl replied. “All men are alike. It is dreadful that they must all pretend to fall in love with me.” Her lips curled with scorn. “I do not think,” she added, “that one man in a hundred knows anything of the professions he makes use of so glibly.”
The earl stared at her in surprise. “Why should you think so, Elaine?”