Another waltz was commencing. As he turned to glance to the centre of the room, his eyes fell upon a couple gliding together among the dancers. He bit his lip, for he recognised them as the Grand-Duke and the woman who only an hour ago had vowed that she still loved him.
He turned back again to that pale, childish face with the blue eyes, and saw truth, honesty, and purity mirrored there.
Yet he had been distinctly and seriously warned against her—even her.
Why, he wondered, had the colonel spoken in so forcible a fashion, and yet refused a single word of explanation?
It was an enigma, to say the least of it.
Chapter Thirteen.
Takes Dudley by a By-Path.
To love faithfully is to love with singleness of heart and sameness of purpose, through all the temptations which society presents, and under all the assaults of vanity both from within and without. It is so pleasant for a woman to be admired and so soothing to her to be loved, that the grand trial of female constancy is to refrain from adding one more conquest to her triumphs when it is evidently in her power to do so. Obviously her chief protection is to restrain the first indefinite thoughts which, if allowed to gain clearness and swiftness, may lead her fancy astray. Even the ideas which commonly float through the mind of woman are so rapid and so indistinctly shaped, that when the door is opened to such thoughts as these they pour in like a torrent. Then first will arise a sudden perception of deficiency in the object of her love, or some additional impression of his unkindness or neglect, with comparisons between him and other men, and regret that he has not some quality which they possess; sadness under a conviction of her future destiny, pining for sympathy under that sadness, and, lastly, the commencement of some other intimacy, which at first she has no idea of converting into love.