Villette

Cholmondeley, do you think?«
    »Mrs. Cholmondeley is there with a very grand party. Yes: Ginevra was in
her
train; and Mrs. Cholmondeley was in Lady * * *'s train, who was in the Queen's train. If this were not one of the compact little minor European courts, whose very formalities are little more imposing than familiarities, and whose gala grandeur is but homeliness in Sunday array, it would sound all very fine.«
    »Ginevra saw you, I think?«
    »So do I think so. I have had my eye on her several times since you withdrew yours; and I have had the honour of witnessing a little spectacle which you were spared.«
    I did not ask what: I waited voluntary information; which was presently given.
    »Miss Fanshawe,« he said, »has a companion with her – a lady of rank. I happen to know Lady Sara by sight; her noble mother has called me in professionally. She is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent, and I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation by making a butt of her neighbours.«
    »What neighbours?«
    »Merely myself and my mother. As to me it is all very natural: nothing, I suppose, can be fairer game than the young bourgeois doctor; but my mother? I never saw her ridiculed before. Do you know, the curling lip, and sarcastically levelled glass thus directed, gave me a most curious sensation?«
    »Think nothing of it, Dr. John: it is not worth while. If Ginevra were in a giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no scruple of laughing at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy King. She is not actuated by malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly. To a featherbrained school- nothing is sacred.«
    »But you forget: I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe in the light of a feather-brained school-girl. Was she not my divinity – the angel of my career?«
    »Hem! There was your mistake.«
    »To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance, there actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her divine. Do you remember our conversation about the presents? I was not quite open with you in discussing that subject: the warmth with which you took it up amused me. By way of having the full benefit of your lights, I allowed you to think me more in the dark than I really was. It was that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal. Still her beauty retained its fascination: three days – three hours ago, I was very much her slave. As she passed me to-night, triumphant in beauty, my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I should yet be the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at
me,
and, while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me: through myself, she could not in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done through my mother.«
    He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire and so little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eye, as just now.
    »Lucy,« he recommenced, »look well at my mother, and say, without fear or favour, in what light she now appears to you.«
    »As she always does, – an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well, though gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretence, constitutionally composed and cheerful.«
    »So she seems to me – bless her! The merry may laugh
with
mama, but the weak only will laugh
at
her. She shall not be ridiculed, with my consent at least; nor without my – my scorn – my antipathy – my –«
    He stopped: and it was time – for he was getting excited – more it seemed than the occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had witnessed double cause for dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe. The glow of his complexion, the expansion of his nostril, the bold curve which disdain gave his well-cut under lip, showed him in a new and striking phase. Yet the rare passion of the constitutionally suave and serene, is not a pleasant spectacle; nor did I like the sort of vindictive thrill which passed through his strong young frame.
    »Do I frighten you, Lucy?« he asked.
    »I cannot tell why you are so very angry.«
    »For this reason,« he muttered in my ear: »Ginevra is neither a pure angel nor a pure-minded woman.«
    »Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her.«
    »Too much for me.
I
can see where
you
are blind. Now, dismiss the subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mama: I will assert that she is flagging. Mama, pray rouse yourself.«
    »John, I will certainly rouse you, if you are not better conducted. Will you