A Complaisant Spouse
THE gaieties of the race-week closed with a ball at Dallington House. As the pretty mistress of this proud mansion was acquainted with all the members of the ducal party, our hero and his noble band were among those who honoured it with their presence.
We really have had so many balls both in this and other as immortal works that, in a literary point of view, we think we must give up dancing; nor would we have introduced you to Dallington House if there had been no more serious business on hand than a flirtation with a lady or a lobster salad. Ah! why is not a little brief communion with the last as innocent as with the first?
Small feet are flitting in the mazy dance and music winds with inspiring harmony through halls whose lofty mirrors multiply beauty and add fresh lustre to the blazing lights. May Dacre there is wandering like a peri in Paradise, and Lady Aphrodite is glancing with her dazzling brow, yet an Asmodeus might detect an occasional gloom over her radiant face. It is but for an instant, yet it thrills. She looks like some favoured sultana, who muses for a moment amid her splendour on her early love.
And she, the sparkling mistress of this scene; say, where is she? Not among the dancers, though a more graceful form you could scarcely look upon; not even among her guests, though a more accomplished hostess it would be hard to find. Gaiety pours forth its flood, and all are thinking of themselves, or of some one sweeter even than self-consciousness, or else perhaps one absent might be missed.
Leaning on the arm of Sir Lucius Grafton, and shrouded in her cashmere, Mrs. Dallington Vere paces the terrace in earnest conversation.
‘If I fail in this,’ said Sir Lucius, ‘I shall be desperate. Fortune seems to have sent him for the very purpose. Think only of the state of affairs for a moment. After a thousand plots on my part; after having for the last two years never ceased my exertions to make her commit herself; when neither a love of pleasure, nor a love of revenge, nor the thoughtlessness to which women in her situation generally have recourse, produced the slightest effect; this stripling starts upon the stage, and in a moment the iceberg melts. Oh! I never shall forget the rapture of the moment when the faithful Lachen announced the miracle!’
‘But why not let the adventure take the usual course? You have your evidence, or you can get it. Finish the business. The exposés, to be sure, are disagreeable enough; but to be the talk of the town for a week is no great suffering. Go to Baden, drink the waters, and it will be forgotten. Surely this is an inconvenience not to be weighed for a moment against the great result.’
