第67章

Jane looked quite agitated; she blushed so much that her mother would probably have remarked it, had she not been, at the moment, stooping over her little invalid boy, who was lying on the sofa near her.

"Miss Taylor has no claim whatever upon you, that I can see," continued Mrs. Graham. "It is true she was kind to you when you were ill with the whooping-cough at school; but so were your other companions--and I am sure she has not been half so considerate and good to you as Elinor, and yet you seem to prefer Miss Adeline now."

Poor Jane looked down, and coloured still more.

"Adeline would do anything for me, mother," she said, in a low voice; "You don't know how much she is attached to me; I can't help liking her," and Jane began to shed a few tears.

"Foolish child!" said her mother, beginning to relent, as she usually did on such occasions, "I don't wish you to be uncivil to her; but I should like you to be more with Kate Howard, and Anne de Vaux;" and the conversation ended, as several others of the same description had done, by leaving things precisely as they were before. Mrs. Graham, indeed, looked upon herself as having showed much decision on the occasion, and acted as a watchful mother, by having made these objections, fruitless as they proved to be.

The report that the engagement between Elinor and Harry had been broken off, was soon known to be correct. It caused some surprise to all who knew them, and much regret to their friends. Mrs. Stanley, who felt a warm interest in both Harry and Elinor, was grieved and disappointed. The Grahams, and Mrs. Robert Hazlehurst, felt very unpleasantly when the cause of the rupture came to be suspected. Mrs. Graham was, however, relieved by finding that there was no understanding between Harry and her daughter--thus far at least all was right; no explanation had taken place between them, and Jane even assured her mother that when in Paris, she had had no idea that Hazlehurst was attached to her. Still there were many blushes whenever the subject was alluded to, there were confidential meetings with Adeline, and other symptoms which left little doubt to her friends that Jane's feelings were interested. Mrs. Graham was obliged to console herself with the idea, that the mischief had, at least, been unintentional on the part of her daughter.

Harry, himself, was much mortified by the reception of Elinor's note, which, by showing the full consequence of his conduct, made it appear more culpable in his own eyes than he had yet been willing to believe it. He even wrote a second time, begging Elinor to re-consider her decision. Full as his fancy was of Jane, yet his regard, one might say his affection, for Elinor, was too well-founded, and of too long standing, for him to endure quietly the idea of having trifled with her. She remained firm, however; her second answer was as decided as the first. Harry's self-reproach was sincere, at least, and he had never before felt so much dissatisfied with himself.

He was less eager than one might suppose, to profit by his newly-acquired liberty. He was in no hurry to offer Jane the attentions which had so lately been Elinor's due. It is true that his position was rather awkward; it is not every faithless swain who is obliged to play the lover to two different individuals, within so short a period, before the same witnesses. At length, after doing penance for a while, by encouraging humiliating reflections, some fear of a rival carried Hazlehurst on to New York, in his new character of Jane's admirer. The first meeting was rather awkward, and Harry was obliged to call up all his good-breeding and cleverness, to make it pass off without leaving an unpleasant impression. "Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute," however, as everybody knows. The sight of Jane's lovely face, with a brighter colour than usual, and a few half-timid and embarrassed glances from her beautiful dark eyes, had a surprising effect in soothing Harry's conscience, and convincing his reason that after all he had not acted so unwisely. He soon showed himself very much in earnest in seeking Jane's favour; though he persuaded himself that he must always do justice to Elinor's excellence. "She is just the woman for a friend," he observed to himself, "and friends I trust we shall be, when the past is forgotten. But Jane, with her transcendant {sic} beauty, her gentle helplessness, is the very creature that fancy would paint for a wife!"

{"Ce n'est que le premier...." = it's only the first step that hurts (French)}