The Collingwoods had not yet arrived. Vane could see nothing of them amid the throng while looking everywhere for Ida. Any very definite idea he had none; but love was the impulse that led him to seek her society so sedulously again—to see her, and hear her voice. How often had he said and thought, even while his whole heart yearned for her, 'I shall never torment myself by looking on her face again!' and now he was searching for her with a heart that was hungry and eager.
He heard carriage after carriage come up and deposit its occupants, name after name announced, and saw group after group stream up the staircase and glide through the doors. Would she come after all? He was beginning to fear not, when suddenly the name of 'Collingwood' caught his ear, and the well-saved old dandy, with an unusually bright smile on his thin aristocratic face, appeared with Clare leaning on one arm and Ida on the other. With all their beauty, we have said that he felt his daughters a bore; thus, so soon as he could, he made all haste to leave them in the care of others, while he mixed with the glittering throng.
So dense was the latter that a considerable time elapsed ere Vane could make his way to where the sisters stood, with more than one admirer near them.
There, too, was Desmond, with his cross of the Bath, and a delicate waxen flower in his lapel. Clara's refusal had certainly piqued, but not pained, the tall, languid guardsman with the tawny hair; yet he did not think his chances of ultimate success, if he cared sufficiently to attain it, were over yet; but his love was of that easy nature—more like a listless flirtation than love—that he was in no haste to press his suit again; for if this affair, and 'a very absurd affair, by Jove!' he deemed it, between Sir Carnaby and his fast sister actually came off, he would find himself often enough in the charming society of Clare; but what a joke it would be to think that Evelyn might be his mother-in-law.
All things considered, the Honourable Major was not much in want of consolation, and if he had required it, there were plenty of lovely belles there and elsewhere 'who would gladly be bride,' not 'to young Lochinvar,' but to the future Lord Bayswater.
And what of Clare, so calm in aspect and aristocratically serene?
Her thoughts were not with the gay yet empty throng that buzzed and glittered around her, but with her soldier-lover, browned and tanned by the fierce sun-glare of India, from whom she had been so long wantonly separated, and was now separated again, yet with the sweet memory of his last passionate kisses on her lip, that looked so proud to others, and who was not now, thank God! as before—facing the toils and terrors of an obscure mountain war in India, but simply self-banished to Germany till time should show what might be before them both. Where was he then? what doing, and with whom?
Thinking, doubtless, of her! so thought and pondered Clare, when she could thrust aside the coming marriage of Sir Carnaby, with all its contingent ridicule; but it was in vain that she repelled it, for the fact took full and bitter possession of her, and could not be displaced; and her lip curled scornfully as she saw her father, with his bald head shining in the light like a billiard ball, his dyed moustache, and false teeth, his undoubtedly handsome and aristocratic figure, though thin and shrunken, clad in evening costume of the most perfect fashion, simpering and bending over Evelyn, of whom we shall have more to say anon.
None that looked on Clare, and saw the greatness of her beauty, the general sweetness of her smile, her tranquil air, and somewhat languid grace, could have dreamed that irritating or bitter thoughts were flitting through her mind.
'Oh,' thought she, as she fanned herself, 'how vapid it all is, exchanging the same hackneyed commonplaces with dozens in succession.'