He walked
like a god, not showing it by his outward gesture, not declaring that it
was so by any assumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing
within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all
but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had
it been given to have such feelings, such an assurance of heavenly
bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circumstances, it
must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of
himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting
himself kissed by a young woman.
Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether
believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved
him,--not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to
be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving
himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply
because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that
half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own
pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all
that there was of her he was the only lord and master.
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