“It is no doing of hers,” said Jock; “but I see that I must not put myself out of reach of her.”
“When she has all the others! That is a mere excuse! If you were an only son, it would be bad enough.”
“Come this way, and I’ll tell you what convinced me.”
“I can’t see how any argument can prevail on you to swerve from the path of honour, the only career any one can care about,” cried Sydney, the romance of her nature on fire.
“Hush, Sydney,” he said, partly from the exquisite pain she inflicted, partly because her vehemence was attracting attention.
“No wonder you say Hush,” said the maiden, with what she meant for noble severity, “No wonder you don’t want to be reminded of all we talked of and planned. Does not it break Babie’s heart?”
“She does not know.”
“Then it is not too late.”
But at that moment the bride’s aunt, who felt herself in charge of Miss Evelyn, swooped down on them, and paired her off with an equally honourable best man, so that she found herself seated between two comparative strangers; while it seemed to her that Lucas Brownlow was keeping up an insane whirl of merriment with his neighbours.
Poor child, her hero was fallen, her influence had failed, and nothing was left her but the miserable shame of having trusted in the power of an attraction which she now felt to have been a delusion. Meanwhile the aunt, by way of being on the safe side, effectually prevented Jock from speaking to her again before the party broke up; and he could only see that she was hotly angered, and not that she was keenly hurt.