I heard him with surprise. "Decidedly," I thought, "we are all wrong," and aloud I observed gravely:
"Mr. Thornton, is there not some mistake? I am talking of Mr. O'Reilly."
"And so am I," he answered promptly.
"And I should like to see if I could not find him."
He offered me his arm with a polite start, and an air of tenderness and homage that perplexed me; but though we went all over the rooms, Cornelius was not to be found. As the guests began to thin and depart I lost all hope, and releasing my cousin from duty, sat down in one of the nearly deserted rooms. Mrs. Langton at once came up to me, and asked if I had seen my friend. I replied that I had caught sight of him from the little Dresden room, when I was there with Mr. Thornton.
"In the Dresden room," she said, looking astonished; "and do you really, a fair maiden of eighteen, venture to remain alone in a Dresden room? alone with so gay and gallant a gentleman as Edward Thornton? Don't you know, dear?" she added, edging her chair to mine, and lowering her voice; "he is quite a naughty man! Did you never hear of him and Madame Polidori, the singer—no?—nor of Mademoiselle Rosalie, nor of Madame?—"
I stopped the list by gravely hoping she was mistaken. She assured me she was not, and wanted to resume the subject, but it was one in which I took neither pleasure nor interest; and I listened so coldly, that she reddened, bit her lip, and left me.
The guests were all gone. As she bade the last adieu, Mrs. Brand sank down in a chair by the open window, and sighed to her brother:
"Ah! Edward, as our own English Wordsworth so finely says:
'The world is too much with us—'"