Lady Hamlet once more felt that she could breathe again, when she no longer beheld the object of her fears before her, and without any mutual recognition of each other having passed between Lord Albert and Lady Adeline. Fresh hopes revived in her breast. She now ventured to address the former in a tone of tremulous gentleness.
"Shall we not walk about in the garden? it is very hot here." He started, looking at her as a man awakening from a dream; and as he suffered himself to be led whither she would, he continued to muse in silence on all that had passed: then suddenly murmured, in a half-broken sentence,
"I will see Adeline; I will see her to-morrow." Lady Hamlet knew too well from this what must be the purpose he was revolving, and the fervency of his still remaining attachment for Lady Adeline. An icy chill withered her heart as she thought of the possible result of that interview, which the words that had involuntarily escaped him too surely predicted. But deeply skilled in the human heart, she did not attempt to say any thing to dissuade him at that moment from his purpose, nor did she venture to make any allusion whatever to Lady Adeline; for she was well aware that all interference would not only be fruitless, but might hazard the very object nearest her heart. Besides, Lord Albert had never suffered himself to pronounce Lady Adeline's name, even when, in the many conversations which he had held with Lady Hamlet Vernon, she had been covertly alluded to; neither had Lady Hamlet Vernon dared openly to touch upon his attachment to Lady Adeline, since their first interview after the visit at Restormel, when in the fervency of her feelings, and the plenitude of her despair, she said,
"Lady Adeline will never make you happy."
From the constrained and painful situation in which she now found herself placed, when silence was scarcely to be borne, and yet to break it was perilous, she was relieved by the approach of Mr. Spencer Newcombe, Lord Raynham, and Lord Glenmore; and glad to arrest them by way of saying something, asked if they had seen Lady Glenmore.
"Yes," replied Lord Raynham. "I left her some time ago enjoying that most enviable amusement, which only demands strength of wind and limb, and spares all the wear and tear of brains that graver cares demand. I wish it were the fashion for men of my age to make girouettes and pirouettes, and cut entrès. Grown gentlemen are taught to dance, and I have long had serious thoughts of learning incog."
"I hope you will let your intimate friends at least enjoy your first début," cried Mr. Spencer Newcombe. "But, after all, you know, Raynham, that girouettes and pirouettes belong equally to the dance of life as to the dance of the ball-room; and we are none of us quite ignorant of these, though some of us make them more gracefully than others."
Lord Raynham had a way of not hearing when it did not suit him to hear; and having no impromptu fait à loisir ready at that moment, by way of reply, he passed on, apparently insensible to the sting, which he was much better skilled in knowing how to inflict than how to receive.
"I think," said Lord Glenmore, "that at all events Georgina must have had enough of that enviable amusement, as Raynham calls it, by this time; and that if we do not go in quest of her, we shall not be together at supper." So saying, he sought her first among the dancers; but passed on, inquiring, as he went, if any one had seen her. Some replied one thing, some another; and many answered in a pointed manner, which, however, was unobserved by him, for it was contrary to Lord Glenmore's nature to entertain a doubt of those whom he once loved and esteemed. Being wearied of seeking Lady Glenmore, and concluding she had gone to the refreshment-room, he sat down by Lady Tenderden, whose vanity was always gratified in every opportunity of keeping up the remembrance of a past juvenile gossip in the eyes of the world.