No liveliness of temper had injured in Camilla the real modesty of her character. A sense, therefore, of obligation for this partiality accompanied its surprise, and was preparing her for repeating the rejection with acknowledgments though with firmness, when the sight of Edgar brought an entirely new train of feelings and ideas into her mind. O! happy moment! thought she; he must have heard enough of what was passed to know me, at least, to be disinterested! he must see, now, it was himself, not his situation in life, I was so prompt in accepting—and if again he manifests the same preference, I may receive it with more frankness than ever, for he will see my whole heart, sincerely, singly, inviolably his own!
Bewitched with this notion, she escaped from the peer, and ran up to the deck, with a renovation of animal spirits, so high, so lively, and so buoyant, that she scarce knew what she said or did, from the uncontroulable gaiety, which made every idea dance to a happiness new even to her happy mind. Whoever she looked at, she smiled upon; to whatever was proposed, she assented: scarce could she restrain her voice from involuntarily singing, or her feet from instinctively dancing.
Edgar, compared with what he now felt, believed that hitherto he had been a stranger to what wonder meant. Is this, thought he, Camilla? Has she wilfully fascinated this old man seriously to win him, and has she won him but to triumph in the vanity of her conquest? How is her delicacy perverted! what is become of her sensibility? Is this the artless Camilla? modest as she was gay, docile as she was spirited, gentle as she was intelligent? O how spoilt! how altered! how gone!
Camilla, little suspicious of this construction, thought it would be now equally wrong to speak any more with either Henry or Lord Valhurst, and talked with all others indiscriminately, changing her object with almost every speech.
A moment's reflection would have told her, that quietness alone, in her present situation, could do justice to the purity of her intentions: but reflection is rarely the partner of happiness in the youthful breast; it is commonly brought by sorrow, and flies at the first dawn of returning joy.
Thus, while she dispensed to all around, with views the most innocent, her gay and almost wild felicity, the very delight to which she owed her animation, of believing she was evincing to Edgar with what singleness she was his own, gave her the appearance, in his judgment, of a finished, a vain, an all-accomplished coquette. The exaltation of her ideas brightened her eyes into a vivacity almost dazzling, gave an attraction to her smiles that was irresistible, the charm of fascination to the sound of her voice, to her air a thousand nameless graces, and to her manner and expression an enchantment.
Powers so captivating, now for the first time united with a facility of intercourse, soon drew around her all the attendant admiring beaux.
No animal is more gregarious than a fashionable young man, who, whatever may be his abilities to think, rarely decides, and still less frequently acts for himself. He may wish, he may appreciate, internally with justice and wisdom; but he only says, and only does, what some other man of fashion, higher in vogue, or older in courage, has said or has done before him.
The young Lord Pervil, the star of the present day, was now drawn into the magic circle of Camilla; this was full sufficient to bring into it every minor luminary of his constellation; and even the resplendent and incomparable beauty of Indiana, even the soft and melting influence of the expressively lovely Mrs. Berlinton, gave way to the superior ascendance of that varied grace, and winning vivacity, which seemed instinctively sharing with the beholders its own pleasure and animation.
To Edgar alone this gave her not new charms: he saw in her more of beauty, but less of interest; the sentence dictated by Dr. Marchmont, as the watch-word to his feelings, were she mine, recurred to him incessantly; alas! he thought, with this dissipated delight in admiration, what individual can make her happy? to the rational serenity of domestic life, she is lost!