Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 03

								

his intercourse with Evelyn, his good humour, gallantry, and presents had
not failed to attach the child to the agreeable and liberal visitor she
had been taught to regard as a relation.  It was only as she grew up to
womanhood, and learned to comprehend the nature of the tie between them,
that she shrank from his familiarity; and then only had he learned to
doubt of the fulfilment of his uncle's wish.  The last visit had
increased this doubt to a painful apprehension.  He saw that he was not
loved; he saw that it required great address, and the absence of happier
rivals, to secure to him the hand of Evelyn; and he cursed the duties and
the schemes which necessarily kept him from her side.  He had thought of
persuading Lady Vargrave to let her come to London, where he could be
ever at hand; and as the season was now set in, his representations on
this head would appear sensible and just.  But then again this was to
incur greater dangers than those he would avoid.  London!--a beauty and
an heiress, in her first debut in London!  What formidable admirers
would flock around her!  Vargrave shuddered to think of the gay,
handsome, well-dressed, seductive young elegans, who might seem, to a
girl of seventeen, suitors far more fascinating than the middle-aged
politician.  This was perilous; nor was this all: Lord Vargrave knew that
in London--gaudy, babbling, and remorseless London--all that he could
most wish to conceal from the young lady would be dragged to day.  He had
been the lover, not of one, but of a dozen women, for whom he did not
care three straws, but whose favour had served to strengthen him in
society, or whose influence made up for his own want of hereditary
political connections.  The manner in which he contrived to shake off
these various Ariadnes, whenever it was advisable, was not the least
striking proof of his diplomatic abilities.  He never left them enemies.
According to his own solution of the mystery, he took care never to play
the gallant with Dulcineas under a certain age.  "Middle-aged women," he
was wont to say, "are very little different from middle-aged men; they
see things sensibly, and take things coolly."  Now Evelyn could not be
three weeks, perhaps three days, in London, without learning of one or
the other of these liaisons.  What an excuse, if she sought one, to
break with him!  Altogether, Lord Vargrave was sorely perplexed, but not
despondent.  Evelyn's fortune was more than ever necessary to him, and
Evelyn he was resolved to obtain since to that fortune she was an
indispensable appendage.

CHAPTER II.


YOU shall be Horace, and Tibullus I.--POPE.
LORD VARGRAVE was disturbed from his revery by the entrance of the Earl
of Saxingham.
"You are welcome!" said Lumley, "welcome!--the very man I wished to see."
Lord Saxingham, who was scarcely altered since we met with him in the
last series of this work, except that he had grown somewhat paler and