"As Lady Towercliffe said to me yesterday, in her usual slip-slop style of talking, 'Mr. Granville is so very eloquent, so benevolent, so learned, so pious, and has such a neat foot!'" continued Captain De Crespigny, laughing. "Really, Dunbar! if you and I quarrel with everybody better than ourselves, we shall find no one left to associate with! I have but one weak side on earth, Miss Marion Dunbar, and it is that of always standing up for the absent."
"They very often require it; and whether in jest or earnest, I am glad you do," replied Marion, finding herself obliged to speak, while her look of agitated consciousness, occasioned a thrill of jealousy in the heart of Captain De Crespigny, which brought a sudden flush into his countenance; but he assumed a careless tone, to conceal his real feelings, and turned to Sir Patrick, saying, "a propos of absence, the Granvilles are never here now! I remember the time when that pretty sister and my cousins were like the three graces, perfectly inseparable!"
At these words, Sir Patrick colored to the very temples; and instantly afterwards becoming pale as marble, he stooped to pat his dog, and then impatiently whistled Dash, along with himself, out of the room first, and finally out of the house; while Marion's eye was turned towards Agnes, with a deep and searching look of enquiry and astonishment.
CHAPTER XXII.
Nothing had ever surprised and annoyed Captain De Crespigny more than the unadmiring indifference with which, week after week, Marion received his visits. Her easy, good humored courtesy of manner was unpardonable! No peculiar consciousness became visible in her manner, when he addressed her; no accession of sensibility in her voice; no agitation in her smile; no increase of her natural timidity; no desire of captivation, nor the slightest coquetry in displaying her own fascinations.
To be thus treated like a cousin or a brother was mortifying in the extreme, and appeared to him perfectly unaccountable, because he little guessed the contrast which incessantly presented itself to Marion's mind, between the low, every-day tone of his thoughts, on all the essential objects of existence, and the elevated sentiments or generous feelings, to which she had lately become accustomed in the society of Mr. Granville. Captain De Crespigny's conversation always diverted her on account of its eccentricity; but in the selfishness and vanity he inadvertently betrayed, she saw how little he could know the real nature and value of that happiness springing from principle and affection, which alone could satisfy her heart.
Formerly, Captain De Crespigny would have gloried in surmounting difficulties, if he had ever found any difficulties to conquer; and now he was determined not to become discouraged, though he felt, if such a thing could be possible, almost humbled. His eye followed Marion wherever she turned, and he was now for ever by her side, though she evidently made it her continual business to avoid him, as she had latterly become more aware than before of his assiduity.
Fortified by the consciousness of her own secret engagement, and by the knowledge that Agnes had a well-founded belief in his attachment to herself, Marion's countenance, which told every transient emotion of her heart, never betrayed a thought of love; and it seemed to Captain De Crespigny as if her heart must be of granite, so cold and hard beneath a smiling stream. She was long of even suspecting the worst, and would not fully believe when she did, that his volatile fancy had really changed; yet a spell seemed over her, that she could not escape from Captain De Crespigny's society, without giving offence to Sir Patrick and Agnes, who both, for different reasons, insisted on her being present when he called, though, unlike her sister, who would have sacrificed every one to herself, she would have sacrificed herself for every one, and only thought with considerate affection, how she could best spare the feelings of Agnes, and at the same time escape from occasioning any jealousy, the fear of which now haunted her like a perpetual night-mare.
One morning, when Agnes was seated in a state of exceedingly full-blown satisfaction, expecting Captain De Crespigny's usual visit, and considering him as much her own property as either her reticule or her work-box, she observed Marion, who had occupations for every hour of the day, hastily gather up her drawing materials, and glide towards the door, evidently anxious to escape without observation, but in vain.
The barometer of Agnes's countenance had become exceedingly stormy, while watching Marion's progress; and being one who rather enjoyed the excitement of a quarrel than otherwise, she asked Marion in a voice raised an octave higher than usual, which sounded as sharp and cutting as an east wind, where she was about to go, adding, in her most sarcastic tone,