But that night Adrien Leroy could not sleep. Dismissing his valet, he
threw himself into a chair, and began to review the events of the day,
which had affected him more deeply than he would confess to. Then the
mere sight of Lady Constance with Lord Standon had convinced him that
any hope of ever winning her for his wife was at an end. For so many
years had he himself been wooed and sought after, without response, that
he was as ignorant of the rules of the game of love as any child. Love!
he had sneered at it, jested at its power all his life; but now he was
beginning to suffer from its pangs himself. He rose hastily, and
throwing open the window of his dressing room, stepped out on the
balcony.
It was an exquisite night, and the stars shone like diamonds. Yet their
very distance and detachment from all things earthly only served to
deepen Adrien's melancholy. Before him stretched, in seemingly endless
vista, the woods and lands of his heritage. As far as eye could reach,
the earth and all within it and upon it belonged to him; and yet he
sighed for the love and devotion of one frail girl, which, had he but
known, were already his.
As he walked to and fro, he was again assailed by a wholesome distaste
of his present empty, aimless existence, and a great longing came over
him to break away from it and start afresh. Yes! he was very tired of it
all. The men and women with whom he had up to this spent his time were
becoming abhorrent to him. The thought of the soft lips and glances that
had hitherto beguiled him, and lulled him into a state bordering upon
stupor, now filled him with shame. Love, that marvellous panacea, had
driven out the false, the impure visions of his heart, as surely and as
thoroughly as ever Hercules cleansed the Augean stables.
The blood of his race stirred with him; he would have liked to have
snatched Constance, and borne her away on his trusty steed, as his
forefathers would have done. But instead he must stand aside, and see
her married to another. Nay, he himself would be asked to attend the
wedding, perhaps even give her away to the man who was surely no more
worthy of her than Adrien himself.
Jasper Vermont had indeed done his work well. No sooner had he seen the
light of love shining in his friend's face, than he had set to work;
and, like the grim spider of evil he resembled, had filled Adrien's mind
with the suggestion that Constance loved--in fact, was secretly engaged
to, Lord Standon.