"It is not that," said Constance, answering in spite of herself after delaying as long as she dared.
"There is the brightness that is only the reflection of outward circumstances, and passes away with them."
"It isn't that in Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that reflection would not utterly absorb."
She would fain have turned the conversation, but the questions were put so lightly and quietly that it could not be gracefully done. She longed to cut it short, but her hand was upon Mr. Carleton's arm and they were slowly sauntering down the rooms,--too pleasant a state of things to be relinquished for a trifle.
"There is the broad day-light of mere animal spirits," he went on, seeming rather to be suggesting these things for her consideration than eager to set forth any opinions of his own;--"there is the sparkling of mischief, and the fire of hidden passions,--there is the passing brilliance of wit, as satisfactory and resting as these gas-lights,--and there is now and then the light of refined affections out of a heart unspotted from the world, as pure and abiding as the stars, and like them throwing its soft ray especially upon the shadows of life."
"I have always understood," said Constance, "that cats' eyes are brightest in the dark."
"They do not love the light, I believe," said Mr. Carleton calmly.
"Well," said Constance, not relishing the expression of her companion's eye, which from glowing had suddenly become cool and bright,--"where would you put me, Mr. Carleton, among all these illuminators of the social system?"
"You may put yourself--where you please, Miss Constance," he said, again turning upon her an eye so deep and full in its meaning that her own and her humour fell before it; for a moment she looked most unlike the gay scene around her.
"Is not that the best brightness," he said speaking low, "that will last forever?--and is not that lightness of heart best worth having which does not depend on circumstances, and will find its perfection just when all other kinds of happiness fail utterly?"