But that night Adrien Leroy could not sleep. Dismissing his valet, he threw himself into a chair, and began to review the events of the day, which had affected him more deeply than he would confess to. Then the mere sight of Lady Constance with Lord Standon had convinced him that any hope of ever winning her for his wife was at an end. For so many years had he himself been wooed and sought after, without response, that he was as ignorant of the rules of the game of love as any child. Love! he had sneered at it, jested at its power all his life; but now he was beginning to suffer from its pangs himself. He rose hastily, and throwing open the window of his dressing room, stepped out on the balcony.
It was an exquisite night, and the stars shone like diamonds. Yet their very distance and detachment from all things earthly only served to deepen Adrien's melancholy. Before him stretched, in seemingly endless vista, the woods and lands of his heritage. As far as eye could reach, the earth and all within it and upon it belonged to him; and yet he sighed for the love and devotion of one frail girl, which, had he but known, were already his.
As he walked to and fro, he was again assailed by a wholesome distaste of his present empty, aimless existence, and a great longing came over him to break away from it and start afresh. Yes! he was very tired of it all. The men and women with whom he had up to this spent his time were becoming abhorrent to him. The thought of the soft lips and glances that had hitherto beguiled him, and lulled him into a state bordering upon stupor, now filled him with shame. Love, that marvellous panacea, had driven out the false, the impure visions of his heart, as surely and as thoroughly as ever Hercules cleansed the Augean stables.
The blood of his race stirred with him; he would have liked to have snatched Constance, and borne her away on his trusty steed, as his forefathers would have done. But instead he must stand aside, and see her married to another. Nay, he himself would be asked to attend the wedding, perhaps even give her away to the man who was surely no more worthy of her than Adrien himself.
Jasper Vermont had indeed done his work well. No sooner had he seen the light of love shining in his friend's face, than he had set to work; and, like the grim spider of evil he resembled, had filled Adrien's mind with the suggestion that Constance loved--in fact, was secretly engaged to, Lord Standon.
His reasons for this were twofold. If Adrien married Constance, Ada Lester would--whether with or without cause--hold him responsible, and was more than capable of carrying out her threat to unmask him to his patron. Moreover, Jasper looked upon Lady Constance with an appreciative and covetous eye, and felt that if he could ever ingratiate himself with her sufficiently for her to promise to become his wife, the summit of his ambition would be reached.
Adrien was easily deceived; for, with all his faults, he was not conceited. He did not guess that Constance's very openly expressed pleasure in the company of Lord Standon was to prevent the discovery of her real and passionate longing for that of her cousin.
Henceforth, he told himself, he must do his best to hide the pain that was gnawing at his heart. Henceforward, the pleasure of life would be as Dead Sea fruit to him. His hand fell on the balustrade in his unconscious despair; and at that moment, another window farther down the long balcony opened, and the figure of Lord Barminster stepped out into the moonlight.
Adrien was in no humour to meet even his father; he was too weary in spirit to confront the old man's satire with his usual calm; so he shrank back into the shadow of the buttress against which he leaned. But Lord Barminster's eyes were quick to perceive him; and, striding forward, he laid his hand on his son's shoulder.
"Well, Adrien," he commenced, "what is wrong? Can't you sleep, or are you given to spending the small hours in star-gazing?"