Three people were sitting in Lady May Penrose's drawing-room, in Chester Terrace, the windows of which, as all her ladyship's friends are aware, command one of the parks. They were looking westward, where the sky was all a-glow with the fantastic gold and crimson of sunset. It is quite a mistake to fancy that sunset, even in the heart of London—which this hardly could be termed—has no rural melancholy and poetic fascination in it. Should that hour by any accident overtake you, in the very centre of the city, looking, say, from an upper window, or any other elevation toward the western sky beyond stacks of chimneys, roofs, and steeples, even through the smoke of London, you will feel the melancholy and poetry of sunset, in spite of your surroundings.
A little silence had stolen over the party; and young Vivian Darnley, who stole a glance now and then at beautiful Alice Arden, whose large, dark, grey eyes were gazing listlessly towards the splendid mists, that were piled in the west, broke the silence by a remark that, without being very wise, or very new, was yet, he hoped, quite in accord with the looks of the girl, who seemed for a moment saddened.
“I wonder why it is that sunset, which is so beautiful, makes us all sad!”
“It never made me sad,” said good Lady May Penrose, comfortably. “There is, I think, something very pleasant in a good sunset; there must be, for all the little birds begin to sing in it—it must be cheerful. Don't you think so, Alice?”
Alice was, perhaps, thinking of something quite different, for rather listlessly, and without a change of features, she said, “Oh, yes, very.”
“So, Mr. Darnley, you may sing, ‘Oh, leave me to my sorrow!’ for we won't mope with you about the sky. It is a very odd taste, that for being dolorous and miserable. I don't understand it—I never could.”
Thus rebuked by Lady Penrose, and deserted by Alice, Darnley laughed and said—
“Well, I do seem rather to have put my foot in it—but I did not mean miserable, you know; I meant only that kind of thing that one feels when reading a bit of really good poetry—and most people do not think it a rather pleasant feeling.”
“Don't mind that moping creature, Alice; let us talk about something we can all understand. I heard a bit of news to-day—perhaps, Mr. Darnley, you can throw a light upon it. You are a distant relation, I think, of Mr. David Arden.”
“Some very remote cousinship, of which I am very proud,” answered the young man gaily, with a glance at Alice.