"You think highly of women," she said.
"I do—so highly that I cannot bear even a cloud to shadow the fairness and brightness that belong to them. A woman's fair name is her inheritance—her dower. I could not bear, had I a sister, to hear her name lightly spoken by light lips. What the moss is to the rose, what green leaves are to the lily, spotless repute is to a woman."
As he spoke the grave words, Hyacinth looked at him. How pure, how noble the woman must be who could win his love!
"Ah me, ah me!" thought the girl, with a bitter sigh, "what would he say to me if he knew all? Who was ever so near the scandal he hated as I was? Oh, thank Heaven, that I drew back in time, and that mine was but the shadow of a sin!"
There were times when she thought, with a beating heart, of what Lady Vaughan had said to her—that it was her wish Adrian Darcy should marry her. The lot that had once seemed so hard to her was now so bright, so dazzling, that she dared not think of it—when she remembered it, her face flushed crimson.
"I am not worthy," she said over and over again to herself—"I am not worthy."
She thought of Adrian's love as she thought of the distant stars in heaven—bright, beautiful, but far away. In her sweet humility, she did not think there was anything in herself which could attract him. She little dreamed, how much he admired the loveliness of her face, the grace of her girlish figure, the purity, the innocence, the simplicity that, despite the shadow of a sin, still lingered with her.
"She is innately noble," he said one day to Lady Vaughan. "She is sure always to choose the nobler and better part; her ideas are naturally noble, pure, and correct. She is the most beautiful combination of child and woman that I have ever met. Imagination and common sense, poetry, idealisms and reason, all seem to meet in her."
Years ago, Adrian Darcy had heard something of Lady Vaughan's half-expressed wish that he should marry her granddaughter. He laughed at it at the time; but he remembered it with a sense of acute pleasure. His had been a busy life; he had studied hard—had carried off some of the brightest honors of his college—and, after leaving Oxford, had devoted himself to literary pursuits. He had written books which had caused him to be pronounced one of the most learned scholars in England. He cared little for the frivolities of fashion—they had not interested him in the least—yet his name was a tower of strength in the great world.
Between Adrian Darcy and the ancient Barony of Chandon there was but the present Lord Chandon, an old infirm man, and his son, a sickly boy. People all agreed that sooner or later Adrian must succeed to the estate; great, therefore, was the welcome he received in Vanity Fair. Mothers presented their fairest daughters to him; fair-faced girls smiled their sweetest smiles when he was present; but all was in vain—the world and the worldly did not please Adrian Darcy. He cared more for his books than woman's looks; he had never felt the least inclination to fall in love until he met Hyacinth Vaughan.