Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 07

								

daunted and appalled her.  Added to this, Caroline was now, alas!
sensible that a fool is not so easily governed; her resistance to an
intimacy with Legard would have been of little avail: Doltimore, in these
matters, had an obstinate will of his own; and, whatever might once have
been Caroline's influence over her liege, certain it is that such
influence had been greatly impaired of late by the indulgence of a
temper, always irritable, and now daily more soured by regret, remorse,
contempt for her husband,--and the melancholy discovery that fortune,
youth, beauty, and station are no talismans against misery.
It was the gayest season of Paris; and to escape from herself, Caroline
plunged eagerly into the vortex of its dissipations.  If Doltimore's
heart was disappointed, his vanity was pleased at the admiration Caroline
excited; and he himself was of an age and temper to share in the pursuits
and amusements of his wife.  Into these gayeties, new to their
fascination, dazzled by their splendour, the young Evelyn entered with
her hostess; and ever by her side was the unequalled form of Legard.
Each of them in the bloom of youth, each of them at once formed to
please, and to be pleased by that fair Armida which we call the World,
there was, necessarily, a certain congeniality in their views and
sentiments, their occupations and their objects; nor was there, in all
that brilliant city, one more calculated to captivate the eye and fancy
than George Legard.  But still, to a certain degree diffident and
fearful, Legard never yet spoke of love; nor did their intimacy at this
time ripen to that point in which Evelyn could have asked herself if
there were danger in the society of Legard, or serious meaning in his
obvious admiration.  Whether that melancholy, to which Lady Vargrave had
alluded in her correspondence with Lumley, were occasioned by thoughts
connected with Maltravers, or unacknowledged recollections of Legard, it
remains for the acute reader himself to ascertain.
The Doltimores had been about three weeks in Paris; and for a fortnight
of that time Legard had been their constant guest, and half the inmate of
their hotel, when, on that night which has been commemorated in our last
book, Maltravers suddenly once more beheld the face of Evelyn, and in the
same hour learned that she was free.  He quitted Valerie's box; with a
burning pulse and a beating heart, joy and surprise and hope sparkling in
his eyes and brightening his whole aspect, he hastened to Evelyn's side.
It was at this time Legard, who sat behind Miss Cameron, unconscious of
the approach of a rival, happened by one of those chances which occur in
conversation to mention the name of Maltravers.  He asked Evelyn if she
had yet met him.
"What! is he, then, in Paris?" asked Evelyn, quickly.  "I heard, indeed,"
she continued, "that he left Burleigh for Paris, but imagined he had gone
on to Italy."