In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character, than most people thought—than Graham himself imagined—than she would ever show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader, there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well might you look for good fruit and blossom on a rootless and sapless tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble and relaxed nature. For a little while the blooming semblance of beauty may flourish round weakness, but it cannot bear a blast; it soon fades, even in serenest sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit whispered of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I, who had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong root her graces held to the firm soil of reality.

While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle, his glance, restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called “a two-handed crack,” what the count would have interpreted as a tête-à-tête. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own thought. It was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to me—a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina were now opposite to him. He could gaze his fill. He surveyed both forms, studied both faces.

Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by glimpses a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting myself. In looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Josef Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch succeeded her schoolgirl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!

“Lucy,” began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, “Miss Fanshawe is certainly a fine girl.”

Of course I assented.

“Is there,” he pursued, “another in the room as lovely?”

“I think there is not another as handsome.”

“I agree with you, Lucy. You and I do often agree in opinion, in taste, I think—or, at least, in judgment.”

“Do we?” I said, somewhat doubtfully.

“I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl—my mother’s god-son instead of her god-daughter—we should have been good friends. Our opinions would have melted into each other.”

He had assumed a bantering air. A light, half caressing, half ironic, shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy Snowe. Was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same, but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament: it fell if a cloud crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand more at fault than you.