She gazed with set face and panic-stricken eyes at the couple, as they floated down the room again. It was Drake, but—how changed! He looked many years older—and his face was stern and grave—sterner and graver and sadder even than when she had first seen it that day the horse had flung him at her feet. It had grown brighter and happier while he had stayed at Shorne Mills—it had been transformed, indeed, for the few short weeks he had been her lover; but the look of content, of joy in life which it wore in her remembrance, had gone again. Had he been ill? she wondered. Where had he been; what had he been doing?
But it did not matter, could not matter to her. He was back in England, and dancing with the woman he loved—with the beautiful Lady Luce, whom he had kissed on the terrace.
"And what do you think of his lordship?" Mrs. Hawksley asked, as if the Right Honorable the Earl of Angleford were her special property. "I wasn't far wrong, was I, Miss Lorton, when I said that he would be the finest, handsomest man in the room?"
"No," said Nell, scarcely knowing what she answered. "That is——" She put her hand to her lips. Even now she had not realized that her Drake and the earl were one and the same man. "Oh, yes; he is handsome, and——" she finished, as the old lady eyed her half indignantly. "But I—I have made a mistake. I mean——What was Lord Angleford called before he succeeded to the title?"
Mrs. Hawksley looked at her rather curiously.
"Why, Lord Selbie, of course," she said. "He ought, being one of the Anglefords, to have been Lord Vernon, Drake Vernon; but his father was a famous statesman, a governor of New South Wales and they made him a viscount. Do you understand?" she asked, proud of her own knowledge of these intricacies of the earl's names and titles.
Poor Nell looked confused. But it did not matter. She had learned enough. Drake Vernon, who had made her love him, and had asked her to be his wife, had been Lord Selbie. Why had he concealed his rank? Why had he deceived her? He had seemed so honest and true, that she would have trusted him with her life as freely as she had given him her love; and all the while——Oh, why had he done it? Was it worth while to masquerade as a mere nobody, to pretend that he was poor? Had he, even from the very first, not intended to marry her? Was he only—amusing himself?
Her face was dyed, with the shame of the thought, for a moment, then the hot flush went and left her pale and wan.
Drake was the Earl of Angleford, and she—she the girl whose heart he had broken, was in his house, looking on at him among his guests! The thought was almost unendurable, and she slowly rose from her chair; then she sat down again, for she was trembling and quite incapable of leaving the gallery.
How long she sat in this state she did not know. The ball went on. She saw Drake—no, the earl—would she never realize it?—dancing frequently. Sometimes he joined the group of dowagers and chaperons on the dais at the other end of the room, or leaned against the wall and talked with the nondancing men; and wherever he went she saw that he was received with that subtle empressement with which the children of Vanity Fair indicate their respect for high rank and wealth.