Lady Laura gave a faint sigh of assent. She was disappointed by her sister's tone; for in the time past she had more than once suspected that Geraldine Challoner loved George Fairfax with a passionate half-despairing love, which, if unrequited, might make the bane of her life. And, lo! here was the same Geraldine discussing her engagement as coolly as if the match had been the veriest marriage of convenience ever planned by a designing dowager. She did not understand how much pride had to do with this reticence, or what volcanic depths may sometimes lie beneath the Alpine snows of such a nature as Geraldine Challoner's.
In the evening Lady Geraldine was the centre of a circle of old friends and admirers; and Clarissa could only observe her from a distance, and wonder at her brilliancy, her power to talk of anything and everything with an air of unlimited wisdom and experience, and the perfect ease with which she received the homage offered to her beauty and wit. The cold proud face lighted up wonderfully at night, and under the softening influence of so much adulation; and Lady Geraldine's smiles, though wanting in warmth at the best, were very fascinating. Clarissa wondered that so radiant a creature could have been so long unmarried, that it could be matter for rejoicing that she was at last engaged. It must have been her own fault, of course; such a woman as this could have been a duchess if she pleased, Clarissa thought.
Lizzy Fermor came up to her while she was admiring the high-bred beauty.
"Well, Miss Lovel, what do you think of her?"
"Lady Geraldine? I think she is wonderfully handsome—and fascinating."
"Do you? Then I don't think you can know the meaning of the word 'fascination.' If I were a man, that woman would be precisely the last in the world to touch my heart. O yes, I admit that she is very handsome—classic profile, bright blue eyes, complexion of lilies and roses, real golden hair—not dyed, you know—and so on; but I should as soon think of falling in love with a statue of snow as with Lady Geraldine Challoner. I think she has just about as much heart as the statue would have."
"Those people with cold manners have sometimes very warm hearts," Clarissa, remonstrated, feeling that gratitude to Lady Laura made it incumbent on her to defend Lady Laura's sister.
"Perhaps; but that is not the case with her. She would trample upon a hecatomb of hearts to arrive at the object of her ambition. I think she might have made more than one brilliant marriage since she has been out—something like ten years, you know—only she was too cold, too obviously mercenary. I am very sorry for George Fairfax."
"Do you know him?"
"Yes, and he is a very noble fellow. He has been rather wild, I believe; but of course we are not supposed to know anything about that; and I have heard that he is the most generous-hearted of men. I know Lady Geraldine has contrived to keep him dangling about her whenever he was in England for the last six or eight years; but I thought it was one of those old established flirtations that would never come to anything—a kind of institution. I was quite surprised to hear of their engagement—and very sorry."