I declare I was half ready to fall head over ears in love with her. And she took it all with a simple unaffected grace, that seemed to be her very nature.
But we did not have all the talk to ourselves. I had not the presumption to engross her entirely. Nor would it have been possible. She was—there is no need to go over it all again—she was Mary Verner.
Nearly opposite to us at table sat a Mr. Easton, a young barrister—young, that is professionally, for he was apparently a man of thirty or thereabouts. He would not have been singled out as a lady-killer, for he was none of your regular Adonises, such as hang by dozens, in portraiture, upon the walls of our Royal Academy Exhibitions, and lounge complacently in our Fop's Alley at the Opera. When, however, the excitement of conversation—in which he took an active and most intelligent part—developed the fine play of his features, you would have pronounced him a man who added, to a cultivated and superior mind, a look that bespoke such gift. In fact there was a manly air about him, that claimed respect, if it did not challenge attention.
About the time when I made this notable discovery, I recollected that at the moment of my introduction to Miss Verner, Mr. Easton was gossipping with her in the secluded corner half-hidden by the drapery, though he moved away, with perfect good breeding, to give place to the new-comer.
About this time, too, there began—at which end of the table, I forget—an occasional play of badinage, whereof Mr. Easton was the subject. For a grave and earnest man, he seemed to receive it all in exceedingly good part. To my surprise also—to say nothing of annoyance—my fair neighbour was brought, after a while, within its scope. Neither did she—I was forced to acknowledge within myself—evince either mauvaise honte or sensitiveness. The truth was plain. They were engaged.
As a child's card-built house tumbles down when the table is shaken, so down went one of the prettiest little castles-in-the-air, that ever simpleton built out of cards of his own shaping.
Down it went; though I flatter myself I was too much a man of the world, to let a glimpse of its dislocated plan be apparent. Indeed, in a few seconds, I had rallied myself on my own absurdity; gulped down my disappointment; and resigned myself again to the charm that Mary Verner still shed around her, if its tint was somewhat changed. Besides, I availed myself of the sudden opportunity thus afforded, for testing the practical value of one of my favourite theories, when I was a young fellow and affected to bask in the sunshine of human nature: to wit, that, apart from serious love-making, when a woman in either married or betrothed, she has therefrom an additional feather in her social cap. So have I found it through life—always provided that the attractive and companionable qualities were otherwise in abundance. And this theory has at least given heartiness to my good wishes for my fairer acquaintances and friends. Is it not better to come to such a philosophical conclusion, than to be always envying other people's good fortune?
Shifting, therefore, my ground, I was rapidly possessed by a strong interest in Miss Verner's future welfare—much of which was undoubtedly genuine.
Delicately, and by gently leading her on, I gathered something of the story of her courtship, though I must needs confess that I cannot now call to mind a word of it. It may be of more interest to state that she was to make Mr. Easton the happiest of men, within six weeks or so of that time; and that the honey-moon was to be spent in a ramble on the Continent. Very emphatically and very sincerely did I wish her a pleasant time of it.
But the most agreeable evenings will come to a close. This one—with its revival of a boy's casual acquaintance, with its momentary castle-building, and its subsequent benevolence of feeling—this one, like all others, passed away. It did not die out, as the fag-end of a dinner-party sometimes will; it was cut short to me by the "good night!" of Mary Verner, as she took her departure, leaning on Mr. Easton's arm, in the train of an elderly female relative.