Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 07

								

The sense of man, and all his mind possess,
As Beauty's love-bait.--SPENSER.
LEGARD was, as I have before intimated, a young man of generous and
excellent dispositions, though somewhat spoiled by the tenor of his
education, and the gay and reckless society which had administered tonics
to his vanity and opiates to his intellect.  The effect which the beauty,
the grace, the innocence of Evelyn had produced upon him had been most
deep and most salutary.  It had rendered dissipation tasteless and
insipid; it had made him look more deeply into his own heart, and into
the rules of life.  Though, partly from irksomeness of dependence upon an
uncle at once generous and ungracious, partly from a diffident and
feeling sense of his own inadequate pretensions to the hand of Miss
Cameron, and partly from the prior and acknowledged claims of Lord
Vargrave, he had accepted, half in despair, the appointment offered to
him, he still found it impossible to banish that image which had been the
first to engrave upon ardent and fresh affections an indelible
impression.  He secretly chafed at the thought that it was to a fortunate
rival that he owed the independence and the station he had acquired, and
resolved to seize an early opportunity to free himself from obligations
that he deeply regretted he had incurred.  At length he learned that Lord
Vargrave had been refused,--that Evelyn was free; and within a few days
from that intelligence, the admiral was seized with apoplexy; and Legard
suddenly found himself possessed, if not of wealth, at least of a
competence sufficient to redeem his character as a suitor from the
suspicion attached to a fortune-hunter and adventurer.  Despite the new
prospects opened to him by the death of his uncle, and despite the surly
caprice which had mingled with and alloyed the old admiral's kindness,
Legard was greatly shocked by his death; and his grateful and gentle
nature was at first only sensible to grief for the loss he had sustained.
But when, at last, recovering from his sorrow, he saw Evelyn disengaged
and free, and himself in a position honourably to contest her hand, he
could not resist the sweet and passionate hopes that broke upon him.  He
resigned, as we have seen, his official appointment, and set out for
Paris.  He reached that city a day or two after the arrival of Lord and
Lady Doltimore.  He found the former, who had not forgotten the cautions
of Vargrave, at first cold and distant; but partly from the indolent
habit of submitting to Legard's dictates on matters of taste, partly from
a liking to his society, and principally from the popular suffrages of
fashion, which had always been accorded to Legard, and which were
nowadays diminished by the news of his accession of fortune, Lord
Doltimore, weak and vain, speedily yielded to the influences of his old
associate, and Legard became quietly installed as the enfant de la
maison.  Caroline was not in this instance a very faithful ally to