So deeply was she absorbed in these reflections, that Somerset, observing her vacant eye fixed on the opposite window, took her hand with an arch smile, and exclaimed.
"Mary! What is the matter? I hope, Lady Dundas, you have not suffered any one to run away with her heart? You know I am her cousin, and it is my inalienable right."
Lady Dundas replied that young ladies best know their own secrets.
"That may be, madam," rejoined he; "but I won't allow Miss Beaufort to know anything that she does not transfer to me. Is not that true, Mary?"
"Yes," whispered she, coloring; "and the sooner you afford me an opportunity to interest you in one, the more I shall be obliged to you."
Pembroke pressed her hand in token of assent; and a desultory conversation continuing for another half-hour, Miss Beaufort, who dreaded the wasting one minute in a day so momentous to her peace, sat uneasily until her aunt proposed retiring to her dressing-room a while, and requested Pembroke to assist her up stairs.
When he returned to the drawing-room, to his extreme satisfaction he found all the party were gone to prepare for their usual drives, excepting Miss Beaufort, who was standing by one of the windows, lost in thought. He approached her, and taking her hand—
"Come, my dear cousin," said he, "how can I oblige you?"
Mary struggled with her confusion. Had she loved Thaddeus less, she found she could with greater ease have related the interest which she took in his fate. She tried to speak distinctly, and she accomplished it, although her burning cheek and downcast look told to the fixed eye of Pembroke what she vainly attempted to conceal.
"You can, indeed, oblige me! You must remember a Mr. Constantine! I once mentioned him to you in my letters."