Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 07

								

Vargrave's views and policy.  In his singular liaison with Lady
Doltimore, the crafty manoeuvrer had committed the vulgar fault of
intriguers: he had over-refined and had overreached himself.  At the
commencement of their strange and unprincipled intimacy, Vargrave had
had, perhaps, no other thought than that of piquing Evelyn, consoling his
vanity, amusing his ennui, and indulging rather his propensities as a
gallant than promoting his more serious objects as a man of the world.
By degrees, and especially at Knaresdean, Vargrave himself became deeply
entangled by an affair that he had never before contemplated as more
important than a passing diversion; instead of securing a friend to
assist him in his designs on Evelyn, he suddenly found that he had
obtained a mistress anxious for his love and jealous of his homage.  With
his usual promptitude and self-confidence, he was led at once to deliver
himself of all the ill-consequences of his rashness,--to get rid of
Caroline as a mistress, and to retain her as a tool, by marrying her to
Lord Doltimore.  By the great ascendancy which his character acquired
over her, and by her own worldly ambition, he succeeded in inducing her
to sacrifice all romance to a union that gave her rank and fortune; and
Vargrave then rested satisfied that the clever wife would not only secure
him a permanent power over the political influence and private fortune of
the weak husband, but also abet his designs in securing an alliance
equally desirable for himself.  Here it was that Vargrave's incapacity to
understand the refinements and scruples of a woman's affection and
nature, however guilty the one, and however worldly the other, foiled and
deceived him.  Caroline, though the wife of another, could not
contemplate without anguish a similar bondage for her lover; and having
something of the better qualities of her sex still left to her, she
recoiled from being an accomplice in arts that were to drive the young,
inexperienced, and guileless creature who called her "friend" into the
arms of a man who openly avowed the most mercenary motives, and who took
gods and men to witness that his heart was sacred to another.  Only in
Vargrave's presence were these scruples overmastered; but the moment he
was gone they returned in full force.  She had yielded, from positive
fear, to his commands that she should convey Evelyn to Paris; but she
trembled to think of the vague hints and dark menaces that Vargrave had
let fall as to ulterior proceedings, and was distracted at the thought of
being implicated in some villanous or rash design.  When, therefore, the
man whose rivalry Vargrave most feared was almost established at her
house, she made but a feeble resistance; she thought that, if Legard
should become a welcome and accepted suitor before Lumley arrived, the
latter would be forced to forego whatever hopes he yet cherished, and
that she should be delivered from a dilemma, the prospect of which