During the few minutes spent in the drawing-room, he had been watching her with ardent glances.
Almost snatching the fashionable journal from her father’s hand, she had withdrawn to a retired corner, and there sat, with apparent eagerness, devouring its contents.
By the position of the sheet, he could tell the column on which she was engaged; and, as the light of the chandelier fell upon her face, he endeavoured to read its expression.
While writing that romance, he remembered with what tender emotions he had been thinking of her. Did she reciprocate those thoughts, now reading the review of it?
It was sweet to perceive a smile upon her countenance, as if the praise bestowed was giving her gratification. Sweeter still, when, the reading finished, she looked searchingly around the room, till her eyes rested upon him, with a proud, pleased expression!
A summons to the best dinner in the world was but a rude interruption to that adorable glance.
As he afterwards sat near the head of the dinner-table, with Lady Mary by his side, how he envied the more juvenile guests at the foot, especially young Scudamore, to whom had been allotted that bright, beautiful star, whose birth they were assembled to celebrate!
Maynard could no more see her. Between them was a huge épergne, loaded with the spoils of the conservatory. How he detested its ferns and its flowers, the gardener who had gathered, and the hand that arranged them into such impenetrable festoons!
During the dinner he was inattentive to his titled companion—almost to impoliteness. Her pleasant speeches were scarce listened to, or answered incoherently. Even her ample silken skirts, insidiously rustling against his knees, failed to inspire him with the divinity of her presence!
Lady Mary had reason to believe in a doctrine oft propounded: that in social life men of genius are not only insipid, but stupid. No doubt she thought Maynard so; for it seemed a relief to her, as the dinner came to an end, and the ladies rose to betake themselves to the drawing-room.