Tortured by conflicting passions, alternately hoping and doubting, he arrived at Portman Square.
Lady Greystock and Lady Euphrasia dwelt with wonder on the length of Amanda’s morning excursion. When she entered the room, he thought she appeared embarrassed; and that, on Lady Greystock’s addressing her, this embarrassment increased. But when she said she had been in the city, her duplicity, as he termed it, appeared so monstrous to him, that he could not forbear an involuntary repetition of her words. So great, indeed, was the indignation it excited in his breast, that he could scarcely forbear reproaching her as the destroyer of his and her own felicity. Her blush appeared to him, not the ingenuous coloring of innocence, but the glow of shame and guilt. It was evident to him that she had seen Belgrave that morning; that he was the occasion of all the mystery which had appeared in her conduct, and that it was the knowledge of the improper influence he had over her heart which made Sir Charles Bingley so suddenly resign her.
“Gracious Heaven!” said he to himself, “who, that looked upon Amanda, could ever suppose duplicity harbored in her breast? Yet that too surely it is, I have every reason to suppose. Yet a little longer I will bear a torturing state of suspense, nor reveal my doubts till thoroughly convinced they are well founded.”
He sat opposite to her at dinner, and his eyes were directed towards her with that tender sadness which we feel on viewing a beloved object we know ourselves on the point of losing forever.
His melancholy was quickly perceived by the penetrating marchioness and Lady Euphrasia. They saw, with delight, that the poison of suspicion, infused into his mind, was already beginning to operate. They anticipated the success of all their schemes. Their spirits grew uncommonly elevated; and Lady Euphrasia determined, whenever she had the power, to revenge, on the susceptible nature of Mortimer, all the uneasiness he had made her suffer, and to add, as far as malice could add to it, to the misery about to be the lot of Amanda.
The dejection of Lord Mortimer was also observed by Amanda. It excited her fears and affected her sensibility. She dreaded that his aunt had refused complying with his request relative to her interference with his father, or that the earl had been urging him to an immediate union with Lady Euphrasia. Perhaps he now wavered between love and duty. The thought struck a cold damp upon her heart. Yet no, cried she, it cannot be; if inclined to change, Lord Mortimer would at once have informed me.
In the evening there was a large addition to the party; but Lord Mortimer sat pensively apart from the company. Amanda, by chance, procured a seat next his. His paleness alarmed her, and she could not forbear hinting her fears that he was ill.
“I am ill, indeed,” sighed he, heavily. He looked at her as he spoke, and beheld her regarding him with the most exquisite tenderness. But the period was past for receiving delight from such an appearance of affection: an affection, he had reason to believe was never more than feigned for him; and, also, from his emotions when with her, that he should never cease regretting the deception. His passions, exhausted by their own violence, had sunk into a calm, and sadness was the predominant feeling of his soul. Though he so bitterly lamented, he could not, at the moment, have reproached her perfidy. He gazed on her with mournful tenderness, and to the involuntary expression of regret, which dropped from her on hearing he was ill, only replied, by saying, “Ah! Amanda, the man that really excites your tenderness must be happy.”
Amanda, unconscious that any sinister meaning lurked beneath these words, considered them as an acknowledgment of the happiness he himself experienced from being convinced of her regard, and her heart swelled with pleasure at the idea.
Any further conversation between them was interrupted by Miss Malcolm, who, in a laughing manner, seated herself by Lord Mortimer, to rally him, as she said, into good spirits.