, and turned her smiles on another;
worldly and ambitious, as he knew her to be; hard and careless, as she
seemed to grow with her court life, and a hundred admirers that came to
her and left her; Esmond, do what he would, never could get Beatrix out
of his mind; thought of her constantly at home or away. If he read his
name in a Gazette, or escaped the shot of a cannon-ball or a greater
danger in the campaign, as has happened to him more than once, the
instant thought after the honor achieved or the danger avoided, was,
"What will SHE say of it?" "Will this distinction or the idea of this
peril elate her or touch her, so as to be better inclined towards me?"
He could no more help this passionate fidelity of temper than he could
help the eyes he saw with--one or the other seemed a part of his nature;
and knowing every one of her faults as well as the keenest of her
detractors, and the folly of an attachment to such a woman, of which the
fruition could never bring him happiness for above a week, there was yet
a charm about this Circe from which the poor deluded gentleman could
not free himself; and for a much longer period than Ulysses (another
middle-aged officer, who had travelled much, and been in the foreign
wars,) Esmond felt himself enthralled and besotted by the wiles of this
enchantress. Quit her! He could no more quit her, as the Cymon of
this story was made to quit his false one, than he could lose his
consciousness of yesterday. She had but to raise her finger, and he
would come back from ever so far; she had but to say I have discarded
such and such an adorer, and the poor infatuated wretch would be sure to
come and roder about her mother's house, willing to be put on the ranks
of suitors, though he knew he might be cast off the next week. If he
were like Ulysses in his folly, at least she was in so far like Penelope
that she had a crowd of suitors, and undid day after day and night after
night the handiwork of fascination and the web of coquetry with which
she was wont to allure and entertain them.

Part of her coquetry may have come from her position about the Court,
where the beautiful maid of honor was the light about which a thousand
beaux came and fluttered; where she was sure to have a ring of admirers
round her, crowding to listen to her repartees as much as to admire her
beauty; and where she spoke and listened to much free talk, such as
one never would have thought the lips or ears of Rachel Castlewo