He found her gazing steadily at him, her chin on her hand. Being caught,
she reddened and looked, away. He took the man's privilege, and
continued to gaze, and she to flush; and presently, 'What are you
looking at?' she said, moving uneasily.
'A most beautiful face,' he answered, with the note of sincerity in his
voice which a woman's ear never fails to appreciate.
She rose and curtsied low, perhaps to hide the tell-tale pleasure in her
eyes. 'Thank you, sir,' she said. And she drew back as if she intended
to leave him.
'But you are not--you are not offended, Julia?' 'Julia?' she answered, smiling. 'No, but I think it is time I relieved
your Highness from attendance. For one thing, I am not quite sure
whether that pretty flattery was addressed to Clarissa--or to Pamela.
And for another,' she continued more coldly, seeing Sir George wince
under this first stroke--he was far from having his mind made up--'I see
Lady Dunborough watching us from the windows at the corner of the house.
And I would not for worlds relieve her ladyship's anxiety by seeming
unfaithful to her son.' 'You can be spiteful, then?' Soane said, laughing.
'I can--and grateful,' she answered. 'In proof of which I am going to
make a strange request, Sir George. Do not misunderstand it. And yet--it
is only that before you leave here--whatever be the circumstances under
which you leave--you will see me for five minutes.' Sir George stared, bowed, and muttered 'Too happy.' Then observing, or
fancying he observed, that she was anxious to be rid of him, he took his
leave and went into the house.
For a man who had descended the stairs an hour before, hipped to the
last degree, with his mind on a pistol, it must be confessed that he
went up with a light step; albeit, in a mighty obfuscation, as Dr.
Johnson might have put it. A kinder smile, more honest eyes he swore he
had never seen, even in a plain face. Her very blushes, of which the
memory set his blasé blood dancing to a faster time, were a character
in themselves. But--he wondered. She had made such advances, been so
friendly, dropped such hints--he wondered. He was fresh from the
masquerades, from Mrs. Cornely's assemblies, Lord March's converse, the
Chudleigh's fantasies; the girl had made an appointment--he wondered.
For all that, one thing was unmistakable. Life, as he went up the
stairs, had taken on another and a brighter colour; was fuller, brisker,
more generous. From a spare garret with one poor casement it had grown
in an hour into a palace, vague indeed, but full of rich vistas and rosy
distances and quivering delights. The corridor upstairs, which at his
going out had filled him with distaste--there were boots in it, and
water-cans--was now the Passage Beautiful; for he might meet her there.
The day which, when he rose, had lain before him dull and
monotonous--since Lord Chatham was too ill to see him, and he had no one
with whom to game--was now full-furnished with interest, and hung with
recollections--recollections of conscious eyes and the sweetest lips in
the world. In a word, Julia had succeeded in that which she had set
herself to do. Sir George might wonder. He was none the less in love.