Upon the appearance of Helen, the Duke of St Allborne flung over the elaborate dissertation to which he was supposed to be listening, and quitting Mr Grahame, advanced hastily to his daughter; Lester Vane caught sight of her at the same moment, and rose to his feet, but without evincing any emotion, other than that of pleasure at her arrival.
“My deah Miss Gwahame,” exclaimed the Duke, all in a flutter of excitement, “I am twuly delighted that you have wejoined us; I began to feah you weah not well, and would afflict us by not wetawning any moah this evening. I should have been gweatly gwieved at youah absence, but faw moah so if you had been weally indisposed.”
“Your Grace will, I hope, pardon my not being present with my mamma and sisters to receive you in the drawing-room,” replied Helen, favouring him with one of her most bewitching smiles. “I am really ashamed to acknowledge to your Grace the truth, but I am afraid that while reading a few pages of a novel I fell into the most unromantic doze possible.”
The Duke laughed appreciatively—a doze after dinner! Who comprehended its luxury more keenly than himself?
“Pway don’t apologise, Miss Gwahame,” he exclaimed, “I think a nap after one’s wine one of the wosiest and most delicate awdinations of natchaw.” Helen smiled bewitchingly again at the Duke, for she knew the eye of Lester Vane, who had slowly approached her, was on her face.
“My Lord Duke,” she returned, “do not misinterpret me—I dozed after my book.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the Duke. “I beg pawdon. Exactly! I could not suppose however, Miss Gwahame, that the wine you sipped at dinnaw would have thwown you into a doze. I alluded to myself, eh, Vane?”
“Weally this girl is devilish pwetty,” thought the
Duke, as he turned to his friend. “She is a pawfect beauty; I must weally wun off with her.”
“You are skilled in after-dinner indulgence, you are, in fact, a perfect master of that species of luxury, St. Allbome,” replied Vane, smiling, and added, with marked empressement to Helen, “I would not have done you the injustice, Miss Grahame, to have presumed that a post prandial slumber had denied us the pleasure of your fair society, if you had not yourself offered it in explanation of your absence. I should, if permitted to speculate upon your movements, have imagined that a stroll by moonlight, along the sinuous paths of the most excellently arranged garden attached to this mansion, had occupied you pleasantly, that, tempted by the beauty of the night—or some other cause—you had been induced to linger in the purple shadows thrown upon the place beneath, by the luxuriant foliage of a certain cluster of graceful trees, bending in pensive reflection over the flowing stream, whose rippling waters lave their base, the balmy air responding to the chant of the water’s low music with soft sighs, and gently fondling in its murmuring the deep green leaves still and silent in their evening dreams.”