'Yes—to me.'
'To the world, you mean—so she is in a convent, then?' said Margarita, readily adopting the idea suggested by herself.
'You have no need to be jealous of her,' said Cecil.
'Nor am I,' replied Margarita proudly, and still switching her riding-skirt.
'Was she like me, as you say?'
'Handsome, with perfect features—mignonne face, and——'
'Enough—let us talk of ourselves now,' said Margarita softly, and then Cecil found himself adopted and placed—he feared—on the footing of an accepted lover, without having attempted to play the character, in any way.
What might be the result, if this too evident regard for him turned to hatred under his coolness? He remembered the well-known couplet in Congreve's 'Mourning Bride,' and became filled with positive apprehension, if it be true that there is 'no fury like a woman scorned.'
Platonism was evidently a rôle she did not understand; and when any suspicion of his doubts or hesitation occurred to her, her full proud lips curled, her dark eyes flashed, and a flush crossed her cheek. But how was he to indulge in love-making—and still more in affecting such, environed by perils as he was then.
It was but too evident that Margarita, like most coquettes, had fallen a victim to herself at last, and was actually pining for a man who had never spoken to her more than words of the merest friendship and thanks; and but for the memory of Mary, and a sentiment of chivalry that mingled with his love for her, Cecil, under all the circumstances of his position, might have yielded to the temptation that beset him, and at all hazards have become the lover of this Servian girl, whose wild impulses came to her with the mixed blood of more than one fiery race; and who, hence, could not be judged of by the same standard as an English girl of the same position.