Mr. Smithson was not neglectful of his affianced. He took her into the
supper-room, where she drank some Moselle cup, but ate nothing. He sat
out three or four waltzes with her on the lawn, listening to the murmer
of the sea, and talking very little.
'You are looking wretchedly ill to-night, Lesbia,' he said, after a
dismal silence.
'I am sorry that I should put you to shame by my bad looks,' she
answered, with that keen acidity of tone which indicates irritated
nerves.
'You know that I don't mean anything of the kind; you are always lovely,
always the loveliest everywhere; but I don't like to see you so ghastly
pale.'
'I suppose I am over-fatigued: that I have done too much in London and
here. Life in Westmoreland was very different,' she added, with a sigh,
and a touch of wonder that the Lesbia Haselden, whose methodical life
had never been stirred by a ruffle of passion, could have been the same
flesh and blood--yes, verily, the same woman, whose heart throbbed so
vehemently to-night, whose brain seemed on fire.
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