"Then I must endeavour to suppress it," replied Lucinda, starting up. "I must stay till this unfortunate ball is over; my going home would seem too pointed."
"Let me then intreat you, my dear girl," said Miss Delwin, "to exert yourself to appear as usual. Come, take my arm, and we will go and talk nonsense to Apesley Sappington."
Lucinda did make an effort to resume her usual vivacity. But it was evidently forced. She relapsed continually: and she resembled an actress that is one moment playing with her wonted spirit, and the next moment forgetting her part.
"So," said Colonel Kingswood to Fitzsimmons, after Lucinda had left them together, "I am to infer that you are are really in love with Miss Mandeville?"
"Ardently—passionately—and I long to tell her so in earnest," replied Fitzsimmons; and he took up the feather that Lucinda in her agitation had dropped from her hand.
"Of course, then, you will make your proposal to-morrow morning," said the colonel.
"No," replied Fitzsimmons, concealing the feather within the breast of his coat. "I cannot so wound her delicacy. I see that she is disconcerted at the little scene into which we inadvertently drew her, and alarmed at the idea that perhaps she allowed herself to go too far. I respect her feelings, and I will spare them. But to me she has long been the most charming woman in existence."
"What, then," inquired the colonel, "has retarded the disclosure of your secret, if secret it may be called?"
"Her superiority in point of fortune," replied Fitzsimmons. "You know the small amount of property left me by my father, and that in my profession I am as yet but a beginner; though I must own that my prospects of success are highly encouraging. To say nothing of my repugnance to reversing the usual order of the married state, and drawing the chief part of our expenditure from the money of my wife, how could I expect to convince her that my motives in seeking her hand were otherwise than mercenary?"
"Are they?" said Colonel Kingswood, with a half smile.