"
"I didn't amuse myself."
"I never thought you did very much. There was something I suppose
in her riding, something in her audacity, something perhaps in her
vivacity;--but through it all I did not think that you were
enjoying yourself. You may be sure of this, Lord Rufford, that when
a woman is not specially liked by any other woman, she ought not to
be specially liked by any man. I have never heard that Miss Trefoil
had a female friend."
From day to day there were little meetings and conversations of
this kind till Lord Rufford found himself accustomed to Miss
Penge's solicitude for his welfare. In all that passed between them
the lady affected a status that was altogether removed from that of
making or receiving love. There had come to be a peculiar
friendship,--because of Eleanor. A week of this kind of thing had
not gone by before Miss Penge found herself able to talk of and
absolutely to describe this peculiar feeling, and could almost say
how pleasant was such friendship, divested of the burden of all
amatory possibilities. But through it all Lord Rufford knew that he
would have to marry Miss Penge.
It was not long before he yielded in pure weariness. Who has not
felt, as he stood by a stream into which he knew that it was his
fate to plunge, the folly of delaying the shock? In his present
condition he had no ease.
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