"He, he, he!" tittered Lady Baskerville, who did not like to offend the speaker, though she was really angry with her in her heart; "I dare say you are quite right—but for my part, I never wish to teach any body any thing; I was so tired of being taught myself, that whatever reminds me of the dull days of being a good girl, and having a governess, quite overcomes me."
"Oh," observed the Comtesse Leinsengen, "what sinnify, whether dat Lord is in a passion or not, nothing will ever change him. He knows but two phrases in the dictionary, I will and I won't, you shall and you shan't, and he do tink himself, and all dat belong to himself, quite perfect, c'est une ignorance crasse a tout prendre, but what sinnify it? He was alway Milor Tonnerre, he is Milor Tonnerre, he will alway be Milor Tonnerre; laisser le grogner, c'est son métier; en qualité de Tonnerre il grognera toujours, quesque ça nous fait? il n'est pas notre mari laisse-le là de grâces," and she looked at Lady Baskerville as she spoke.
This affair, however, did not pass over quite so easily as Lady Tilney would have had it; and it ended in Lord Tonnerre's going suddenly to town; and Lady Baskerville remaining in exceedingly bad humour: for to be without an attaché quelconque was as bad as to be without a hat from Herbot's.
CHAPTER XII.
FASCINATION—THE CHURCH-YARD, &c.
In a continued scene of frivolity, to call it by no harsher name, and in the turmoil of petty passions and jarring female interests, passed the hours at Restormel that led on to the most solemn period of the year. Amongst the actors in it, Lord Albert D'Esterre cannot (with the feelings and character which he still possessed) be supposed to have held a part at all consistent with his true wishes; and, but for the increasing and alarming fascination of his senses, and the warping of his better judgment, by the influence which Lady Hamlet Vernon still, day by day, more effectually exercised over him, he would have quitted a society altogether, of which he could never really form a component part, and from which, but for the third power which held him in combination with it, he must have quickly separated himself.
But, however much this fatal influence might affect the general line of his conduct, the good seeds sown in early life, though sadly choaked as they had been, were not yet totally eradicated; and on the morning of the Easter festival, he took his way to the village to obey the calling bell of church. The service had begun when he entered, and it was not till the first lesson was commenced that he lifted his eyes from the book, and beheld in the family pew opposite Lady Hamlet Vernon. A flush of various feelings coloured his cheek, and suffused with a richer glow even the whiteness of his forehead. She is then, he thought, in despite of the example around her, really good;—she has listened to my advice; she has come to the fountain-head for instruction—all is well! He then endeavoured to follow the service throughout its solemn beauty; but his mind was disturbed, and his thoughts wandered.