rt, though, to all seeming, without
a cause. From the same instinct Vivian had conceived the same vague
jealousy,--a jealousy, in his instance, coupled with a deep dislike
to his supposed rival, who had wounded his self-love. For the marquis,
though to be haughty or ill-bred was impossible to the blandness of his
nature, had never shown to Vivian the genial courtesies he had lavished
upon me, and kept politely aloof from his acquaintance; while Vivian's
personal vanity had been wounded by that drawing-room effect which the
proverbial winner of all hearts produced without an effort,--an effect
that threw into the shade the youth and the beauty (more striking, but
infinitely less prepossessing) of the adventurous rival. Thus animosity
to Lord Castleton conspired with Vivian's passion for Fanny to rouse all
that was worst by nature and by rearing in this audacious and turbulent
spirit.

His confidant Peacock suggested, from his stage experience, the
outlines of a plot, to which Vivian's astuter intellect instantly gave
tangibility and coloring. Peacock had already found Miss Trevanion's
waiting-woman ripe for any measure that might secure himself as her
husband and a provision for life as a reward. Two or three letters
between them settled the preliminary engagements. A friend of the
ex-comedian's had lately taken an inn on the north road, and might be
relied upon. At that inn it was settled that Vivian should meet Miss
Trevanion, whom Peacock, by the aid of the abigail, engaged to lure
there. The sole difficulty that then remained would, to most men, have
seemed the greatest; namely, the consent of Miss Trevanion to a Scotch
marriage. But Vivian hoped all things from his own eloquence, art, and
passion; and by an inconsistency, however strange, still not unnatural
in the twists of so crooked an intellect, he thought that by insisting
on the intention of her parents to sacrifice her youth to the very man
of whose attractions he was most jealous,--by the picture of disparity
of years, by the caricature of his rival's foibles and frivolities,
by the commonplaces of "beauty bartered for ambition," etc.,--he might
enlist her fears of the alternative on the side of the choice urged upon
her. The plan proceeded, the time came: Peacock pretended the excuse of
a sick relation to leave Trevanion; and Vivian a day before, on pretence
of visiting the picturesque scenes in the neighborhood, obtained leave
of absence. Thus the plot wen