Stobart heard her in a gloomy temper. What hope was there for such a woman—so given over to worldly pleasures, with no capacity for thought of serious things, no desire for immortality, finding her paradise in a masquerade, her happiness in the adulation of fools?
"How can I ever bring her nearer to God while she lives in a perpetual intoxication of earthly pleasures, while she so exults in her beauty and her power over the hearts of men?"
She wore a diamond tiara and necklace of matchless fire. Her gown was white and silver, the stomacher covered with coloured jewels that flashed between the opening of her long black silk domino, an ample garment with loose sleeves. She had arrayed herself in all her splendour for this much-talked-of masquerade, wishing to do honour to the gentlemen who gave the treat.
"Bid my servants fetch me at one o'clock, if you please, Sir Joseph," she said to the cavalier on her left.
"At one! Impossible! 'Tis nearly eleven already. I shall order them at three, and I'll wager they'll have to wait hours after that."
"You make very sure of your dance pleasing folks," she said. "I doubt I shall have yawned myself half dead before three o'clock; but you'll have to find me a seat in a dark corner where I can sleep behind my fan."
"There are no dark corners—except in the gallery for lovers and dowagers—and I pledge myself nobody under forty shall have any disposition for slumber," protested Sir Joseph, as he ran off to give her orders.
She passed under the lamp-lit portico on Lord Dunkeld's arm.
"That is the man she will marry," Stobart thought, as he walked away, hurrying from the crowd and the lights, and noise and laughter, and past a tavern a little way off, in front of which an army of footmen and links were gathered, and where they and the crowd were being served with beer and gin. He was glad to get into a dark lane that led towards Westminster Bridge, skirting the river, and to be able to think quietly.
She would marry Dunkeld. Was it not the best thing she could do—her best chance for the saving of that immortal soul which he had tried in vain to save? Dunkeld was no idle pleasure-lover, though he mixed in the diversions of his time. He was a politician, had written more than one pamphlet that had commanded the attention of the town. He was a good Churchman, a regular attendant at the Chapel Royal. He was rich enough to be above suspicion of mercenary views. He had never been a gambler or a profligate. He was seven and thirty, Antonia's senior by about twelve years. Assuredly she would be safer from the evil of the time as Dunkeld's wife than in her present unprotected position.