But Lady Mabel, looking on, told
herself that they were making love to each other before her eyes.
And why shouldn't they? She asked herself that question in perfect
good faith. Why should they not be lovers? Was ever anything
prettier than the girl in her country dress, active as a fawn and
as graceful? Or could anything be more handsome, more attractive
to a girl, more good-humoured, or better bred in his playful
emulation than Silverbridge?
'When youth and pleasure meet. To chase the glowing hours with
flying feet!' she said to herself over and over again.
But why had he sent her the ring? She would certainly give him
back the ring and bid him bestow it at once upon Miss Boncassen.
Inconstant boy! Then she would get up and wander away for a time
and rebuke herself. What right had she even to think of
inconstancy? Could she be so irrational, so unjust, as to be sick
for his love, as to be angry with him because he seemed to prefer
another? Was she not well aware that she herself did not love
him,--but that she did love another man? She had made up her mind
to marry him in order that she might be a duchess, and because she
would give herself to him without any of that horror which would
be her fate in submitting to matrimony with one or another of the
young men around her.
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