who was endeavoring to joke
himself into the good graces of the Duke of Sedbergh's sister. The din
of conversation rose at the challenge of the piano, and Langham was soon
overcrowded.

Musically, it was perhaps as well, for the player's inward tumult was so
great, that what his hands did he hardly knew or cared. He felt himself
the greatest criminal unhung. Saddenly, through all that wilful mist of
epicurean feeling, which had been enwrapping him, there had pierced a
sharp illumining beam from a girl's eyes aglow with joy, with hope, with
tenderness. In the name of Heaven, what had this growing degeneracy of
every moral muscle led him to now? What! smile and talk, and smile--and
be a villain all the time? What! encroach on a young life, like
some creeping parasitic growth, taking all, able to give nothing in
return--not even one genuine spark of genuine passion? Go philandering
on till a child of nineteen shows you her warm impulsive heart, play on
her imagination, on her pity, safe all the while in the reflection that
by the next day you will be far away, and her task and yours will be
alike to forget! He shrinks from himself as one shrinks from a man
capable of injuring anything weak and helpless. To despise the world's
social code, and then to fall conspicuously below its simplest articles;
to aim at being pure intelligence, pure open-eyed rationality, and not
even to succeed in being a gentleman, as the poor commonplace world
understands it! Oh, to fall at her pardon before parting for ever!
But no--no more posing; no more dramatizing. How can he get away most
quietly--make least sign? The thought of that walk home in the darkness
fills him with a passion of irritable impatience.

'Look at that Romney, Mr. Elsmere; just look at it!' cried Dr. Meyrick
excitedly; 'did you ever see anything finer? There was one of those
London dealer fellows down here last summer offered the Squire four
thousand pounds down on the nail for it.'

In this way Meyrick had been taking Robert round the drawing-room, doing
the honors of every stick and stone in it, his eyeglass in his eye, his
thin old face shining with pride over the Wendover possessions. And so
the two gradually neared the oriel where the Squire and Mr. Bickerton
were standing.

Robert was in twenty minds as to any further conversation with the
Squire. After the ladies had gone, while every nerve in him was still
tingling with anger, he had done his best to keep up