He might have spared himself this harrowing thought, did he but know that Edith had actually seen him on her first entrance, and was determined on showing him that her happiness was not entirely dependent on her whilome, careless lover. The chains he had been so anxious to loose he now hugged, with anxiety and joy, the closer to him, as he, notwithstanding the brilliant remarks of Bel, (to which I am fearful he answered at random,) continued absorbed and wrapped in the contemplation of Edith’s peerless beauty, and her sprightly and lady-like manner. He now entered, con amore, into the truth of Shakspeare’s lines—
It so falls out,
That what we have we prize not to the worth,
While we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,
Why then we know its value: then, we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours.
He watches her—and she, at last, suffers her eye to fall upon him. “Is it possible! Am I so changed! Or, perhaps, she has so far forgotten me that, after a lapse of three years, I am not recognized.” These were some of his now agonized thoughts; and, with murmured apology, he resigned Bel to her father, and moved toward Edith. Too late! She has taken her place in the quadrille, and he only reaches her former resting place in time to hear the murmurs of admiration from the group of gentlemen left. The graceful, willowy figure of Edith is now moving through the quadrille with a young officer, whom Lennard at once dubs in his heart as “a puppy,” from the very fact of seeing him look on his own Edith! with too impassioned an eye to suit his fancy.
As she takes her place, she allows her eyes to meet those of Charles—an electric stream seems to shoot through each heart, for the bright blush of Edith suffuses even her snowy throat.
When the quadrilles were finished, he, of course, had an opportunity of advancing and addressing Edith; and that same inconsistency! which I have before apostrophized—he would rather have the embarrassment of a scene now, than the smile, and—to his excited imagination—very cool, collected reception which Edith at this time tenders him. She welcomed him, ’tis true, but shared with him—him the loved—the betrothed—the absent—the smiles which his heart so covets with the acquaintance of a day! Could mortal man bear this? Charles felt that the iron had entered into his soul and Edith saw it!