But it occurred to Bernard
that Captain Lovelock had perhaps been faithless; that, at least, the
discourtesy of chance and the inhumanity of an elder brother might have
kept him an eternal prisoner at the Hotel de Hollande (where, for
all Bernard knew to the contrary, he had been obliged to work out his
destiny in the arduous character of a polyglot waiter); so that the poor
young girl, casting backward glances along the path of Mrs. Vivian's
retreat, and failing to detect the onward rush of a rescuing cavalier,
had perforce believed herself forsaken, and had been obliged to summon
philosophy to her aid. It was very possible that her philosophic studies
had taught her the art of reflection; and that, as she would have said
herself, she was tremendously toned down. Once, at Baden, when Gordon
Wright happened to take upon himself to remark that little Miss Evers
was bored by her English gallant, Bernard had ventured to observe,
in petto, that Gordon knew nothing about it. But all this was of no
consequence now, and Bernard steered further and further away from the
liability to detect fallacies in his friend. Gordon had engaged himself
to marry, and our critical hero had not a grain of fault to find with
this resolution.
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