The news of Maud's engagement was naturally a congenial topic for gossip in Dustypore. The romantic circumstances under which it had come about lent themselves readily to the superaddition of any details, necessary, in the teller's opinion, in order to bring the story to the correct pitch of embellishment. Everybody considered Maud a lucky girl; some cynics remarked that once again Sutton had shown himself the most courageous of mankind; and Mrs. Vereker said, sentimentally, that she feared poor Desvœux would this time be really broken-hearted. There was some satire lurking in the words 'this time,' because the present occasion was by no means the first on which the same sort of thing had occurred. Desvœux's was one of those inconveniently adjusted temperaments to which no woman is completely delightful till she has become unattainable. His relations to the opposite sex did not as a general rule appear to involve anything of a seriously pathetic order; but no sooner was a girl engaged to some one else than he awoke to the terrible discovery that he was deeply in love with her himself and deeply aggrieved by her betrothal to another. He was known not to be a marrying man; he made no secret of his dislike of matrimony as an institution; still he greatly resented other people's marriages. Whenever any ladies of his acquaintance got married he used to send them the most lovely bridal presents, with beautiful little gilt-edged notes on the finest satin paper, politely intimating that he was broken-hearted. Sometimes his feelings were too much for prose and his melancholy would break out into epigrammatic versicles; sometimes the gift bore only an inscription eloquent in its reticence—'Le don d'un triste célibataire,' or 'Avec un soupir.' The presents, however, were so very pretty (for Desvœux's tastes were of the extravagant order), that their fair recipients, for the most part, were glad enough to take them, sighs, poetry and all, without inquiring too rigidly into the giver's actual frame of mind. As most of the young ladies who had for some years past been married at Dustypore had experienced something of the sort, they probably compared notes and reassured each other as to the probability of a disease, from which Desvœux had already more than once recovered, not proving fatal on any subsequent occasion.
Maud's engagement, however, touched Desvœux more nearly than any previous blow of the same description. Her joyous, childish beauty, the readiness of her wit, the quickness of her replies, the great fun which they always had whenever Fortune was kind enough to throw them together, Maud's unconcealed appreciation of himself, despite the coquettish airs in which she now and then indulged; the ready frankness which invited intimacy so pleasantly—all had gone deep into Desvœux's heart, and he had grown to feel a sort of proprietorship in them, which it vexed him terribly to feel suddenly at an end. He felt certain that Maud liked him very much; and certain, doubly certain now, that he intensely admired her. No one else, he felt bitterly, had an equal right to do so. That Sutton, too, should be the fortunate rival made defeat all the bitterer. Sutton's good qualities were precisely those which Desvœux could least appreciate; his military prowess did not impress him in the least; his chivalry touched no corresponding chord; his ideas of duty seemed pedantic, his feelings about women an anachronism.
If there was one thing in which it was especially irritating that such a man should have carried the day, it was in the ascendancy over women, which Desvœux considered as his especial forte. He piqued himself not a little on his knowledge of the sex, his insight into their weaknesses, his experienced tact in dealing with them to the best account. He had established what he considered a perfectly satisfactory footing with Maud, and had spent no little time, trouble, and sentiment in the process. It was a cruel humiliation to be rudely displaced from this agreeable eminence by a mere commonplace soldier, who had lived all his life in a camp and talked about women like a child.
Women are, Desvœux came bitterly to feel, inscrutable, and the cleverest or stupidest of mankind alike puppets in their hands when they have a passion to gratify or a secret to conceal. Anyhow, the news of Maud's engagement set his heart a-beating and sent his spirits down to zero. He was dining with the officers in the Fort when the announcement was made. One of them had been calling at the Vernons', and had heard the interesting fact from Felicia's own lips. 'Honneur aux braves!' cried Desvœux, with ostentatious merriment, tossing off his glass; 'here's to their very good healths.' He was an adept at concealing his feelings, but a near observer might have seen that his hand trembled so that it was with difficulty he could carry his glass to his lips, and that, despite his jovial tones, he had turned deadly pale.
'I am glad she has come into the Army, at any rate,' said some one.
'Of course,' said Desvœux; 'it is the old story. "J'aime beaucoup les militaires." What chance have we poor civilians when a red jacket is in the field?'
'And what, pray,' said one of the guests, a new arrival, 'is the lady's name?'
Desvœux had risen from the table, and was moving towards the billiard-room. 'Her name,' he said, stopping in the act of lighting a cigar, 'is that of the rest of her sex—frailty.'
'Desvœux is hard hit this time,' observed one of a little knot who lingered behind the rest over their wine; 'he really loved her.'
'Fiddlededee!' said another. 'Desvœux love her, indeed!'