"She knows what we all do. There are hard stories about him, and, as you say, he does not look saintly; but however wrong it may be, Mr. Hemstead, it is still a fact that society will wink at almost everything when a man is as rich and well connected as he, that is, as long as a man sins in certain conventional ways and keeps his name out of the papers."
Here her escort joined her, and they passed on; and Hemstead stood lowering at the man, the pitch of whose character began to stain the beautiful girl who, knowing him somewhat, could willingly and encouragingly remain at his side.
True, he had seen abundant proof that she had a heart, good impulses, and was capable of noble things, as he had told her; but was she not also giving 'lira equal proof that the world enthralled her heart, and that senseless and soulless fashion, rather than the will of God, or the instincts of a pure womanly nature, controlled her will?
He had no small vanity in which to wrap himself while he nursed a spiteful resentment at slights to himself. It was a tendency of his nature, and a necessity of his calling, that he should forget himself for the sake of others. Lottie awoke his sympathy, and he pitied while he blamed.
But he desponded as to the future, and feared that she would never fulfil her first beautiful promise. He realized, with a vague sense of pain, how far apart they were, and in what different worlds they dwelt. At one time it had seemed as if they might become friends, and be in accord on the chief questions of life. But now that she was smiling so approvingly upon a man whose very face proclaimed him villain, he saw a separation wider and more inexorable than Hindu caste,—that of character.
And yet with his intense love of beauty it seemed like sacrilege—the profanation of a beautiful temple—that such a girl as Charlotte Marsden should permit the associations of that evening. It was true that he could find no greater fault with her in respect to dress, manners, and attendants, than with many others,—not as much as with his own cousin. But for some reason that did not occur to him it was peculiarly a source of regret that Lottie should so fall short of what he believed true and right.
His thoughts gave expression to his face, as in momentary abstraction he paced up and down the hall. Suddenly a voice that had grown strangely familiar in the brief time he had heard it said at his side, "Why, Mr. Hemstead, you look as if at a funeral. What are you thinking of?"
Following an impulse of his open nature, he looked directly into
Lottie's face, and replied, "You."
She blushed slightly, but said with a laugh, "That is frank," but added, meaningly, "I am surprised you cannot find anything better to think about."
"I think Mr. Hemstead shows excellent judgment," said Mr. Brently, the young man whose face had seemed the index of all evil. "Where could he find anything better to think about?"