The young man flung back the dark hair from his forehead, and smiled at his mother as he interrupted her.
“If I should fall in love with this Miss Laura Mason, who, according to your account, is to have a power of money one of these days, I should prove myself a wise man. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, madre mia? Well, I’ll do my best. The young lady is pretty, but her childishness is positively impayable. What’s the amount of the fortune that is to counterbalance so much empty-headed frivolity? Eh, mother?”
“I can’t quite answer that question, Launcelot. I only know that Mr. Monckton told me Laura will be very rich.”
“And Gilbert Monckton, although a lawyer, is one of those uncompromising personages who never tell a lie. Well, mother we’ll see about it; I can’t say anything more than that.”
The young man had been standing before his easel with his palette and brushes in his hand during this conversation, now and then adding a touch here and there to a picture that he had been working at since his return. He had taken up his abode in his old apartments. His mother spent a good deal of her time with him; sitting at needlework by the open window, while he painted; listening while, in his idler moments, he sat at the piano, composing a few bars of a waltz, or trying to recall the words of some song that he had written long ago; always following him with watchful and admiring eyes, shadowed only by the mother’s anxiety for her son’s future.
Launcelot Darrell did not seem to be altogether a bad young man. He accepted his mother’s love with something of that indolent selfishness common to those spoiled children of fortune upon whom an extra share of maternal devotion has been lavished. He absorbed the widow’s affection; and gave her in return an easy-going, graceful attention, which satisfied the unselfish woman, and demanded neither trouble nor sacrifice from the young man himself.
“Now, if the wealthy heiress were the poor companion, mother,” Mr. Darrell said, presently, working away with his brush as he spoke, “your scheme would be charming. Eleanor Vincent is a glorious girl; a little bit of a spitfire, I should think, quiet and gentle as she is with us; but a splendid girl; just the sort of wife for an indolent man; a wife who would rouse him out of his lethargy and drive him on to distinction.”
Yes, Launcelot Darrell, who had never in his life resisted any temptation, or accepted any guidance except that of his own wishes, was led by them now; and, instead of devoting himself to the young heiress, chose to fall desperately in love with her fair-haired companion. He fell in love with Eleanor Vane; desperately, after his own fashion. I doubt if there was any great intensity in the young man’s desperation; for I do not believe that he was capable of any real depth of feeling. There was a kind of hollow, tinselly fervour in his nature which took the place of true passion. It may be that with him all emotions—love and remorse, penitence, pity, regret, hate, anger, and revenge—were true and real so long as they lasted. But all these sentiments were so short-lived, by reason of the fickleness of his mind, that it was almost difficult to believe even in their temporary truth.
But Eleanor Vane, being very young and inexperienced, had no power of analyzing the character of her lover. She only knew that he was handsome, accomplished, and clever; that he loved her, and that it was very agreeable to be loved by him.
I do not believe that she returned the young man’s affection. She was like a child upon the threshold of a new world: bewildered and dazzled by the glorious aspect of the unknown region before her; beguiled and delighted by its beauty and novelty. All the darker aspects of the great passion were unknown to her, and undreamed of by her. She only knew that on the cheerless horizon that had so long bounded her life, a new star had arisen—a bright and wonderful planet, which for a while displaced the lurid light that had so long shone steadfastly across the darkness.