"We cannot go against love's will
When he has bound us fast;
Forgive the thought that did thee wrong
And be my own at last!"
She glances up. If she can point the words by even one deep glance into her lover's eyes, all may yet be well. But Miss Montgomery, as if in malice prepense, has suddenly risen and leaned against the piano just before the singer's eyes. Captain Lockhart, standing with folded arms across the room, is out of the range of her vision. Lady Vera rises in despair. Her innocent little plan has failed. All hope dies in her breast.
She sits down in a quiet corner, and Lord Gordon insists on fanning her, and showing her a new portfolio of engravings. This is his last evening with her, and like the reckless moth that he is, he singes his wings in the flame of her beauty.
Someone calls him away at last, and the girl's heart gives a great, muffled throb of relief. She is alone for the moment, in the quiet alcove, half hidden by the white lace curtain. Will Captain Lockhart come to her now? she asks herself, with a wildly-beating heart.
He sees her sitting there in her black dress and lily-white beauty, the light shining down on her golden head and star-like face. Some impulse stronger than his pride moves him to cross the room to her side. She glances up with a smile so dazzling in its joy, that Tennyson's lines rush into his mind:
"What if with her sunny hair,
And smile as sunny as cold,
She meant to weave me a snare
Of some coquettish deceit,
Cleopatra-like, as of old,
To entangle me when we met,
To have her lion roll in a silken net,
And fawn at a victor's feet?"
He sits down in Lord Gordon's vacant chair, the little stand with the portfolio of new engravings and a vase of roses just between them. The countess takes one of the crimson roses and plays with it to hide her nervousness. She does not think how beautiful her slender, white hands look playing with the red leaves of the rose.
The handsome soldier is for once embarrassed. That smile which she had thought would tell him all has only puzzled him.
"Is she only a coquette, after all?" he asks himself. "Is she trying to draw me into the toils again that she may see how great is her power?"
With that thought he grows cold and hard toward her.