“I hope you like him?” Trevor said, in a low tone.
“Oh, charming!” replied Miss Vi.
“I should not for all the world—you’ll never know the reason why, perhaps—have let him go to any place else, but here—upon my honour,” said Mr. Vane Trevor, speaking very much in earnest.
“Miss Perfect, I can see, is charmed,” said Violet.
“Ah, yes—you think so—very happy, I’m sure; but I shall miss him very much. I—you’ve no idea what company he has been to me: and what a lot of trouble I had in finding one to—in fact, the sort of one I wanted.”
“They are very pretty, very sweet; but after all don’t you think the natural song the best? I should be afraid of the repetition; I should tire of the same airs,” said Miss Darkwell.
“Of others—yes, perhaps, I should, but of those, never,” said Mr. Vane Trevor, eloquently.
No romantic young gentleman who means to walk in the straight and narrow path of prudence, does well in falling into such a dialogue of covert-meanings with so very pretty a girl as Miss Violet Darkwell. It is like going up in a balloon, among invisible and irresistible currents, and the prince of the powers of the air alone can tell how long a voyage you are in for, and in what direction you may come down.
The flattering tongues of men! sweet airy music attuned to love and vanity, to woman’s pride and weakness, half despised, half cherished. Long after—a phrase—a fragment of a sentence, like a broken bar, or half remembered cadence of some sweet old air, that sounded in your young ears, in dances and merry-makings, now far and filmy as bygone dreams, turns up unbidden—comes back upon remembrance, and is told, with a saddened smile, to another generation. Drink in the sweet music at your pretty ears; it will not last always. There is a day for enjoyment, and a day for remembrance, and then the days of darkness.
A little blush—the glory, too, of ever so faint a smile! the beautiful flush of beauty’s happy triumph was on the fair face of the girl, as she listened for a moment, with downcast eyes; and Vane Trevor, conceited young man as he was, had never felt so elated as when he saw that transient, but beautiful glow, answering to his folly.