CHAPTER XII.
"'Tis he!
What doth he here?"—Byron.
"What! loitering still, Emily?" said Lady Mandeville, when on entering the breakfast-room, she found her and Edward Lorraine employed, apparently, in looking over some scattered drawings—in reality in talking. Emily, happy without thinking it at all necessary to analyse, and so destroy her happiness; and Edward, if not exactly thinking, yet feeling, it a very pleasant thing to have a most absorbed listener, who was not the less agreeable for being young and pretty. He was engaged in turning the leaves, occasionally referring to his companion. Edward possessed one great fascination in discourse. He had the air of truly valuing the opinion he asked.
"Nous ne nous aimions pas, mais notre indifférence
Avait bien les symptômes de l'amour,"
thought Lady Mandeville. "I must disturb
