"His dislike to Colonel Manners!" said Marian, blushing a good deal as she began to perceive her mistake, and comprehended at a glance that the clearing up of the matter might make an exposé of her inmost thoughts that for reasons of her own she did not desire. "His dislike to Colonel Manners! Oh, is that all! His words and conduct towards me just now, made me think that his dislike was to me, Edward, and to our union."
"And did the thought give you so much pain, Marian?" said De Vaux, somewhat anxiously.
But Marian de Vaux had by this time completely mastered her agitation, and she answered in her usual quiet sweet tone: "Of course it gave me great pain, Edward, to think that I had lost my uncle's regard, and great pain to think that the consequences might pain you. But tell me, was it really nothing more than his dispute with Colonel Manners which made your father's conduct so very strange?"
"Nothing more, I can assure you," answered her lover; "but you know that my father, when he bursts forth into one of these fits of passion, is like Don Quixote at the puppet-show, and deals his blows to the right and left upon all things, whether they have offended him or not."
"Hush, hush, Edward!" cried Marian, "he is your father, remember."
De Vaux coloured slightly, and indeed he had not got to the end of his speech ere he had found that he had better have left it unsaid; for, notwithstanding his general fastidiousness, and a certain degree of bitter that mingled with his views of other people, he had too much taste to find any pleasure in pointing out the faults or follies of his near relations. He might feel them a little too sensitively, it is true; but he seldom made them the subject of his conversation; and he was now vexed, both that he had done so at all, and that Marian had been the person to whom he had done it.
Thus, Edward de Vaux was a little out of humour with himself, and, as a matter of course, he soon found cause to be dissatisfied with others; for the human mind--to which nothing is so burdensome as self-reproach of any kind--is always glad to cast a part of its load upon the shoulders of other people. The first thing, then, that, upon reflecting rapidly over the moments just passed, Edward de Vaux found to be discontented with, was the manner in which Marian had spoken of delaying their union; and once having started this idea, he hunted it up and down through all the chambers and passages of his mind, like a boy after a mouse. "Their marriage seemed to her a matter of great indifference," he thought; and then he went onto persuade himself that her love for him was of a very calm and tranquil character compared with his for her. Indeed, it seemed little more than indifference, he fancied, or at best sisterly affection; and at the very thought of such a thing as sisterly affection, the spirit of Edward de Vaux sprang up as if a serpent had crossed his path, although his person remained perfectly calm, with his arm resting on the harpsichord, and his fingers twisting some of the strings of the harp. One of the strings breaking, with a sharp twang, called the spirit suddenly back again; and he found himself standing abstractedly before his fair cousin; while she looked upon him with a smile, which seemed to say, "I could triumph, if I would! but it is not in my nature."
Now, Edward de Vaux, though he read the smile, and read it aright, which is not always done in that difficult language of which it was one of the hieroglyphics, was all the more puzzled when he had done. But the fact is, that women's eyes, in matters of love, seem to be not eyes but microscopes; and Marian had traced the whole fine progress of Edward's thoughts and feelings, through every turning and winding, as accurately as if he had laid them all open before her with his own free will. Then, connecting the result with some foregone conclusions in her own mind, the combination produced a smile, being, as we before said, the equivalent sign, in the language mentioned, of the words, "I could triumph, if I would! but it is not in my nature." There was, however, a little mental reservation, perhaps, in regard to the triumph, inasmuch as she reserved unto herself entire right and privilege of triumphing hereafter, in case she should find it necessary and expedient to do so.
The time occupied in reading the smile, together with the beauty of the smile itself, and the exceeding loveliness of the lips on which it rested, all tended to get the better of the demon in the heart of De Vaux, and to make him feel, that as he loved her beyond anything on earth, he must try to content himself with obtaining her upon her own terms. Having come to this conclusion, it was natural enough that he should seek to linger out the time with her alone; but Marian felt that if she did stay at that moment, she might be obliged to triumph in the way she wished not to do, or to explain her smile without triumphing at all, which was still more disagreeable. She therefore determined to retreat to the breakfast-room, in which she was sure of finding allies; and which--as her apprehensions in regard to Lord Dewry's disapprobation, and the consequent emotion, had now been dissipated--she was no longer afraid of entering.
De Vaux would fain have detained her, pleading that he had had no opportunity of conversing with her alone since his return, and urging all those little arguments which we leave to imagination. Marian, however, resisted with fortitude; and her lover, forced to content himself with a promise to take a long ramble with him after breakfast, as they had done in the days of their early youth, led her to the breakfast-room, where they found the rest of the party assembled, and conversing with as much ease and cheerfulness as if nothing had occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the morning.