"Which shows that you have by the grace of nature what I have attained only by discipline and art," said Edgar gallantly.
Adelaide smiled. She did not disdain the compliment. On the contrary, she wished to impress it on Edgar that she accepted his praises because they were her due. She knew that the world takes us if not quite at our own valuation, yet as being the character we assume to be. It all depends on our choice of a mask and to what ideal self we dress. If we are clever and dress in keeping, without showing chinks or discrepancies, no one will find out that it is only a mask; and those of us are most successful in gaining the good-will of our fellows who understand this principle the most clearly and act on it the most consistently.
The evening was a pleasant one for Adelaide, being an earnest of the future for which, if she had not worked hard, she had controlled much. Edgar sang solos to her accompaniment, and put in his rich baritone to her pure if feeble soprano; he played chess with her for an hour, and praised her play, as it deserved: naturally, not thinking it necessary to make love to his sisters, he paid her almost exclusive attention, and looked the admiration he felt. She really was a very pretty young woman, and she had unexceptionable manners; and having cut himself adrift from his ties and handsomely released himself from his obligations, he was not disposed to take much trouble in looking far afield for a wife when here was one ready-made to his hand. Still, he was not so rash as to commit himself too soon. Fine play is never precipitate; and even the most lordly lover, if an English gentleman, thinks it seemly to pretend to woo the woman whom he means to take, and who he knows will yield.
And on her side Adelaide was too well-bred for the one part, and too wise for the other, to clutch prematurely at the prize she had willed should be hers. Her actions must be like her gestures, graceful, rhythmic, rather slow than hurried, and bearing the stamp of purpose and deliberation. When Edgar should make his offer, as she knew he would, she would ask for time to reflect and make up her mind. This would be doing the thing properly and with due regard to her own dignity; for no husband of hers should ever have cause to think that she held her marriage with him as a thing so undeniably advantageous there was no doubt of her acceptance from the first. Every woman must make herself difficult, thought Adelaide, if she wishes to be prized, even the woman who for seven years has fixed her eyes steadily on one point, and has determined that she will finally capture a certain man and land him as her lifelong possession.
Thus the evening passed, with a subtle undercurrent of concealed resolves flowing beneath its surface admiration that gave it a peculiar charm to the two people principally concerned—the one feeling that she had advanced her game by an important move; the other, that the eternal fitness of things 'was making itself more and-more evident, and that it was manifest to all his senses whom Providence had destined for his wife, and for what ultimate matrimonial end he had been shaped and spared.
A book of photographs was on the table.
"Are you here?" asked Edgar, lowering his bright blue eyes on Adelaide as she sat on a small chair at Mrs. Harrowby's feet, carrying daughterly incense to that withered shrine.
"Yes, I think so," she answered.
He turned the pages carefully—passing over his sisters in wide crinolines and spoon bonnets; his mother, photographed from an old picture, in a low dress and long dropping bands of hair, like a mouflon's ears, about her face; Fred and himself, both as boys in Scotch suits, set stiffly against the table like dolls—with gradual improvement in art and style, till he came to a page where Adelaide's fair vignetted head of large size was placed side by side with another, also vignetted and also large.
"Ah! there you are; and what a capital likeness!" cried Edgar, with the joyous look and accent of one meeting an old friend, giving that gauge of interest which we all unconsciously give when we first see the photograph of a well-known face. He looked at the portrait long and critically. "Only not so pretty," he added gallantly. "Those fellows cannot catch the spirit: they give only the outside forms, and not always these correctly. Here is a striking face," he continued, pointing to Adelaide's companion-picture—a girl with masses of dark hair, dark eyes, large, mournful, heavily fringed with long lashes, and a grave, sad face, that seemed listening rather than looking. "Who is she? She looks foreign."