'Nay, flattery exists not in paying praise due to beauty or merit, but in praise misplaced.'
After a pause, Cecil said with a smile:
'Surely you never, at any time, loved this man Mattei Guebhard?'
'I never did so,' said she, emphatically; 'but, I once said before, I could not help him loving me. I have never loved anyone; and moreover I shall never—marry!'
Now Cecil had known and seen enough of the world to be aware that when a handsome young woman declares her intention of never marrying, it becomes one of the broadest hints a man can receive; and, under all the circumstances, he heard her now with a perplexity that bordered on irritation.
At such a time cold reason might suggest that Mary Montgomerie, and his country too, were lost to him for ever! In Servia was his new home; Margarita was beautiful, anxious to serve him and to win his gratitude—too evidently his love, if she could. Just rage at Guebhard invited him to meet her half-way; but the image of Mary came before Cecil, and he thought:
'Montrose was right in his song—"Love one, and love no more!"'
He was perfectly conscious that some time or other, at Palenka, he had spoken of love to Margarita; but was then referring to his love of Mary Montgomerie; while she had believed that he was in some curious way pleading his own cause with herself.
There was even now a struggle going on in the heart of Margarita, between her mind and her affections; and though eventually it seemed as if the latter would conquer, some sense of propriety, of what society and training inculcated, and the moral force of her own spirit, did battle against them; and then, moreover, she was not without some dread of her brother the Count of Palenka.
Despite all this, and her recent coquettish announcement that she could never love, and would never marry any man, Cecil found her coming to the point with him and taking the initiative, piqued perhaps that he was the only man she had never yet subdued; and so, before he knew very well how it had all come to pass, or by what she had prefaced it, he was startled by her saying in her most dulcet Servian: