Could Lord Albert have known this to be the self-same decision that Lady Adeline and Lady Dunmelraise had come to in regard to himself, it would have gone far to have settled his determination at once, and to have hastened a declaration which must have confirmed his union with Lady Adeline. The fatal security however of thinking that, under all circumstances, Lady Adeline would keep her engagement with him, whatever he might ultimately decide upon, made him the more apprehensive of owing her possession to any motive save that of pure attachment; and it may be also (for the heart is deceitful above all things) that, resting on this very security, he had allowed his feelings to betray him imperceptibly into an aberration from their natural channel, till at length he could not distinguish truth from falsehood, and would too certainly deplore his error when the remedy was past his power.
Under the false but specious reasoning, then, in which he now indulged, he strengthened himself in his determination to pursue the plan he had laid down, namely, of watching the feelings and conduct of Lady Adeline in silence, and of endeavouring to elicit from Lady Hamlet Vernon, in whose friendship and interest he placed a fatal but implicit confidence, some of the grounds upon which her mysterious words rested. With this decision he prepared to go to South Audley Street.
CHAPTER VII.
TRUE NOBILITY.
It must not be supposed that Lady Hamlet Vernon admitted to herself that she was the mover of premeditated evil. Impelled by violent impulse, it is true she hesitated not in adopting means of any kind to attain her wishes; for she invariably succeeded in reasoning herself, however falsely, into a belief that she had at least some apology to gloss over, if not to justify, the measures she pursued.
Whatever calm she had assumed in her late interview with Lord D'Esterre, she suffered in secret the most painful agitation: the violence she had done her feelings, in concealing the disappointment she endured on Lord Albert D'Esterre's leaving Restormel, and the restraint that those feelings had since undergone before she found a favourable opportunity of speaking to him, all contributed (when at length that opportunity at Lady Tilney's supper-party did present itself) to render their indulgence more overwhelming. When she returned home that night, the sleepless hours of suffering she passed were not less painful in degree than those in which Lord D'Esterre shared; with this difference only in their nature, that the anguish endured by him was of a varied and mixed kind; whereas the whole mass of Lady Hamlet's wishes were centred in an uncontrolled passion for him; a passion which, since she had allowed it to wear its undisguised character, she found a thousand plausible reasons for admitting to control her every thought.
There was no cause, she argued, sufficiently strong in Lord D'Esterre's engagement with Lady Adeline to forbid the indulgence of her love for him; she had no relative duties to sway her conduct—she was her own mistress: and in the opinion of the world—her world at least—she would be justified, where envy did not bias the judgment, in endeavouring to form so desirable a connexion. However Lord Albert D'Esterre might have been ostensibly considered by the members of the exclusive circle as one of themselves, and however much they affected to deride and despise his principles and habits, yet as a man whose talents promised to shine in the senate, and whose interest was considerable, his actions were not, in fact, quite so undervalued, or so indifferent to the leading personages of that body, as they might on a cursory view appear to be. He was still, Lady Tilney thought, too young, in her political way of viewing every thing, and had not given sufficient proofs of firmness, as a party man, for any direct overtures to be made to him on that score. But in as far as regarded his admission, in the first instance, to society amongst her coterie, he owed that distinction to his youth, his personal appearance, and his high rank; to his youth especially, as fitting him to become, under clever tuition, an obedient satellite; and when his very attractive exterior and manners, which were at once dignified and original, were added to the account, it is not to be wondered that he was reckoned a person worth courting, and a character worth forming, which might be incorporated, in due time, as one of their own.
Still there was a probationary state to pass through before any one was actually admitted into the arena of that circle. Lady Hamlet Vernon, however, who from his first appearance had marked him with her peculiar approbation, was very clear-sighted as to the views which might be formed of others respecting an appropriation of him to their own purposes; and she thought she perceived, almost from the first, in the politic and eager attentions of Lady Tilney towards him, as well as in those of her silent but not uninterested lord, some ulterior object in obtaining his favour and confidence, which she imagined might also turn to her own account, as affording herself means to acquire an influence over him of another nature.