Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 05

								

pretensions to your hand; you are free!--may you be happy!"
"Oh, Lord Vargrave! oh, Lumley!" said Evelyn, weeping, and moved by a
thousand recollections of early years.  "If I could but prove in any
other way my grateful sense of your merits, your too partial appreciation
of me, my regard for my lost benefactor, then, indeed, nor till then,
could I be happy.  Oh that this wealth, so little desired by me, had been
more at my disposal! but as it is, the day that sees me in possession of
it, shall see it placed under your disposition, your control.  This is
but justice,--common justice to you; you were the nearest relation of the
departed.  I had no claim on him,--none but affection.  Affection! and
yet I disobey him!"
There was much in all this that secretly pleased Vargrave; but it only
seemed to redouble his grief.
"Talk not thus, my ward, my friend--ah, still my friend," said he,
putting his handkerchief to his eyes.  "I repine not; I am more than
satisfied.  Still let me preserve my privilege of guardian, of
adviser,--a privilege dearer to me than all the wealth of the Indies!"
Lord Vargrave had some faint suspicion that Legard had created an undue
interest in Evelyn's heart; and on this point he delicately and
indirectly sought to sound her.  Her replies convinced him that if Evelyn
had conceived any prepossession for Legard, there had not been time or
opportunity to ripen it into deep attachment.  Of Maltravers he had no
fear.  The habitual self-control of that reserved personage deceived him
partly; and his low opinion of mankind deceived him still more.  For if
there had been any love between Maltravers and Evelyn, why should the
former not have stood his ground, and declared his suit?  Lumley would
have "bah'd" and "pish'd" at the thought of any punctilious regard for
engagements so easily broken having power either to check passion for
beauty, or to restrain self-interest in the chase of an heiress.  He had
known Maltravers ambitious; and with him, ambition and self-interest
meant the same.  Thus, by the very finesse of his character--while
Vargrave ever with the worldly was a keen and almost infallible
observer--with natures of a more refined, or a higher order, he always
missed the mark by overshooting.  Besides, had a suspicion of Maltravers
ever crossed him, Caroline's communications would have dispelled it.  It
was more strange that Caroline should have been blind; nor would she have
been so had she been less absorbed in her own schemes and destinies.  All
her usual penetration had of late settled in self; and an uneasy
feeling--half arising from conscientious reluctance to aid Vargrave's
objects, half from jealous irritation at the thought of Vargrave's
marrying another--had prevented her from seeking any very intimate or
confidential communication with Evelyn herself.
The dreaded conference was over; Evelyn parted from Vargrave with the
very feelings he had calculated on exciting,--the moment he ceased to be