The usual light, graceful words did not come so easily.
"Good-bye!" she repeated. "This has been the happiest day in my life, and I thank you for it."
She turned away to follow the servant who had come in search of her, but the quiet, gentle eyes of Lady Estelle rested on her until she was out of sight.
CHAPTER XXII.
"I SHALL NEVER BE A MODEL WOMAN."
Lord Charles Vivianne had been completely spoiled by good fortune. An only son, he had succeeded quite early to a magnificent estate, a large fortune, and an ancient title. As a handsome boy, he had been caressed, indulged, and spoiled; his mother never allowed him to be thwarted in any wish or desire; his father thought there was no one equal to him. They both died while he was still in his early youth, and he was left to the care of guardians who were just as indulgent.
Some young men would not have suffered so terribly from this as he did; but he was not naturally good, and circumstances fostered all the evil that was in him.
Fair women flattered him; he was a great prize in the matrimonial market. He knew that some of the fairest and noblest women in England would have been proud and pleased to have shared his lot; he knew that he could choose where he would, but, although the chains of Hymen might be made of the fairest roses, he would never wear them. He had resolved to have as much enjoyment as possible out of his life, and, to secure that, he decided upon roaming like a butterfly, and marrying when he grew older.
He was wealthy, and the possessor of an ancient title and magnificent estates; but the name of Lord Charles Vivianne was not held in highest honor by the world—it was not one of purest renown.
Husbands with beautiful wives, fathers with fair young daughters, looked reproachfully on him, for neither virtue, honor, friendship, principle, nor pity, ever stood in his way when he had a caprice to gratify or a whim to indulge. He laughed at the notion of a broken heart. In his creed, women were quite an inferior order of creation—they might have souls or they might not, that was a mere matter of belief—they were created simply for the amusement of the passing hour, and to do the real drudgery work of the world. How many women's hearts he broke, how many fair young lives he blighted, will all be known on that terrible day when sin is called by its right name, and there is no gloss thrown over it.