Her beauty appeared to him, the more he gazed upon it, Nature's only perfect work. That any one could admire any other style, any other lovely being, seemed to him a thing impossible. His former fancied attachment he now saw to have been indeed but a dream of vanity, and that it had touched any other feeling.
He could not, however, maintain the struggle long; he soon began to seek for arguments favourable to his wishes. Alfred's love, he told himself, could not bear comparison with his in fervour, or he would have persevered longer—he would have renewed his offer again and again. The attachment was not mutual, Caroline having herself rejected him. Such an attachment then would, in all probability, soon be forgotten; then why, if he could, make himself acceptable, might he not be happy? In a little time he arrived at the certainty that Alfred would himself be generous enough to rejoice in his happiness.
Lady Palliser's encouragement was decided. Caroline's indeed was but passive. Geoffery, however, himself believing his cousin's attachment to be a hopeless one, pretended to point out many marks of a hidden preference, which he said could not be mistaken, averring that a cool looker-on was better able to judge than a party interested.
Willoughby, more even than the rest of the world, was liable to being flattered into the belief of what he wished; he very soon, therefore, gave himself over to a passion which left him no longer master of any one thought or feeling.
Geoffery's motives were such as we have already pointed out. Unsuccessful courtships were at least time lost, while his being the administering medium of flattery and flattering hopes kept up his own influence.
Willoughby, when he wrote to his brother, which he did frequently and kindly, thought there was a delicacy in refraining entirely from any mention of Caroline, or of his own growing admiration; accordingly he did not even allude to the subject.
Three or four letters had been severally received by Alfred, and opened with excessive trepidation, dreading what they might contain; yet when they were concluded and found not to contain even the name of Caroline, the feeling of momentary relief was followed by one allied to disappointment; one which was at least an access of the miserable suspense, the restless craving to know something, even the worst, rather than look any longer upon the desolate blank, which, without the slightest variation, each weary day now presented. From the hour he had quitted Cheltenham, and it was now some weeks, he had seemed to himself a being cut off from the past, apart from the present, shut out from the future. It was a state of mind no longer to be endured. Within about half an hour after the receipt of Willoughby's last letter, though it was then about ten o'clock at night, he set out for Cheltenham.
CHAPTER II.
Alfred arrived at Cheltenham at an early hour in the morning. On repairing to Lady Arden's villa, however, he found that the family had already gone to the walks.