And Cupid mourns his love so tender."
During this performance, Lord Aspenly, who had now perfectly recovered his equanimity, marked the time with head and hand, standing the while beside the fair performer, and every note she sang found its way through the wide portals of his vanity, directly to his heart.
"Brava! brava! bravissima!" murmured his lordship, from time to time. "Beautiful, beautiful air—most appropriate—most simple; not a note that accords not with the word it carries—beautiful, indeed! A thousand thanks! I have become quite conceited of lines of which heretofore I was half ashamed. I am quite elated—at once overpowered by the characteristic vanity of the poet, and more than recompensed by the reality of his proudest aspiration—that of seeing his verses appreciated by a heart of sensibility, and of hearing them sung by the lips of beauty."
"I am but too happy if I am forgiven," replied Emily Copland, slightly laughing, and with a heightened colour, while the momentary overflow of merriment was followed by a sigh, and her eyes sank pensively upon the ground.
This little by-play was not lost upon Lord Aspenly.
"Poor little thing," he inwardly remarked, "she is in a very bad way—desperate—quite desperate. What a devil of a rascal I am to be sure! Egad! it's almost a pity—she's a decidedly superior person; she has an elegant turn of mind—refinement—taste—egad! she is a fine creature—and so simple. She little knows I see it all; perhaps she hardly knows herself what ails her—poor, poor little thing!"
While these thoughts floated rapidly through his mind, he felt, along with his spite and anger towards Mary Ashwoode, a feeling of contempt, almost of disgust, engendered by her audacious non-appreciation of his merits—an impertinence which appeared the more monstrous by the contrast of Emily Copland's tenderness. She had made it plain enough, by all the artless signs which simple maidens know not how to hide, that his fascinations had done their fatal work upon her heart. He had seen, this for several days, but not with the overwhelming distinctness with which he now beheld it.
"Poor, poor little girl!" said his lordship to himself; "I am very, very sorry, but it cannot be helped; it is no fault of mine. I am really very, very, confoundedly sorry."
In saying so to himself, however, he told himself a lie; for, instead of being grieved, he was pleased beyond measure—a fact which he might have ascertained by a single glance at the reflection of his wreathed smiles in the ponderous mirror which hung forward from the pier between the windows, as if staring down in wondering curiosity upon the progress of the flirtation. Not caring to disturb a train of thought which his vanity told him were but riveting the subtle chains which bound another victim to his conquering chariot-wheels, the Earl of Aspenly turned, with careless ease, to a table, on which lay some specimens of that worsted tapestry-work, in which the fair maidens of a century and a half ago were wont to exercise their taste and skill.