Then the
mere sight of Lady Constance with Lord Standon had convinced him that
any hope of ever winning her for his wife was at an end. For so many
years had he himself been wooed and sought after, without response, that
he was as ignorant of the rules of the game of love as any child. Love!
he had sneered at it, jested at its power all his life; but now he was
beginning to suffer from its pangs himself. He rose hastily, and
throwing open the window of his dressing room, stepped out on the
balcony.
It was an exquisite night, and the stars shone like diamonds. Yet their
very distance and detachment from all things earthly only served to
deepen Adrien's melancholy. Before him stretched, in seemingly endless
vista, the woods and lands of his heritage. As far as eye could reach,
the earth and all within it and upon it belonged to him; and yet he
sighed for the love and devotion of one frail girl, which, had he but
known, were already his.
As he walked to and fro, he was again assailed by a wholesome distaste
of his present empty, aimless existence, and a great longing came over
him to break away from it and start afresh.
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