"That were nothing new at least," replied Villiers, trying to hide the disgust he felt at her mode of speaking; "the young and blooming too often protract their first season, till the roses are exchanged for lilies."
"If Miss Fitzhenry's roses still bloom," said the lady, "they must be perennial ones; they have surely grown more fit for a herbal than a vase."
Villiers now perceived his mistake, and replied, "You are speaking of Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry, as the good lady styles herself—I spoke of—her niece—"
"Has Ethel been ill?" Lady Lodore's hurried question, and the use of the christian name, as most familiar to her thoughts, brought home to Villiers's heart the feeling of their near relationship. There was something more than grating; it was deeply painful to speak to a mother of a child who had been torn from her—who did not know—who had even been taught to hate her. He wished himself a hundred miles off, but there was no help, he must reply. "You might have seen last night that she is perfectly recovered."
Lady Lodore's imagination refused to image her child in the tall, elegant, full-formed girl she had seen, and she said, "Was Ethel with you? I did not see her—probably she went home before the opera was over, and I only perceived your party in the crush-room—you appear already intimate."
"It is impossible to see Miss Fitzhenry and not to wish to be intimate," replied Villiers with his usual frankness. "I, at least, cannot help being deeply interested in every thing that relates to her."
"You are very good to take concern in my little girl. I should have imagined that you were too young yourself to like children."
"Children!" repeated Villiers, much amazed; "Miss Fitzhenry!—she is not a child."
Lady Lodore scarcely heard him; a sudden pang had shot across her heart, to think how strangers—how every one might draw near her daughter, and be interested for her, while she could not, without making herself the tale of the town, the subject, through the medium of news-papers, for every gossip's tea-table in England—where her sentiments would be scanned, and her conduct criticized—and this through the revengeful feelings of her husband, prolonged beyond the grave. Tears had been gathering in her eyes during the last moments; she turned her head to hide them, and a quick shower fell on her silken dress. Quite ashamed of this self-betrayal, she exerted herself to overcome her emotion. Villiers felt awkwardly situated; his first impulse had been to rise to take her hand, to soothe her; but before he could do more than the first of these acts, as Lady Lodore fancied for the purpose of taking his leave, she said, "It is foolish to feel as I do; yet perhaps more foolish to attempt to conceal from one, as well acquainted as you are with every thing, that I do feel pained at the unnatural separation between me and Ethel, especially when I think of the publicity I must incur by asserting a mother's claims. I am ashamed of intruding this subject on you; but she is no longer the baby cherub I could cradle in my arms, and you have seen her lately, and can tell me whether she has been well brought up—whether she seems tractable—if she promises to be pretty?"
"Did you not think her lovely?" cried Villiers with animation; "you saw her last night, taking my arm."