At length, however, he had summoned his reason to his aid, and was about to speak further to Lady Hamlet Vernon, when, interrupted by the quick succeeding questions of many of the company who were passing the room in which they sat to go to supper, Lord Albert offered his arm mechanically to Lady Hamlet Vernon, and they followed in the train of others. The noise and gaiety and brilliancy of the scene could not for a moment take Lord Albert out of himself; one idea, one image engrossed him, and all the surrounding persons and circumstances glanced before his eye or came to his ear, with the glitter and the buzz of undistinguishable lights and sounds. He went through the forms of the place and scene with the precision of an automaton, and when the supper ended he followed Lady Hamlet Vernon about like her shadow, sometimes absorbed in the deepest concentration of thought, sometimes endeavouring to revert to their former conversation, which had been so abruptly, and to him so unopportunely broken off; eager to renew its discussion, as well as to elicit a disclosure (regardless of his solemn promise) of that part of the subject on which she refused all explanation.
In both, however, he wholly failed; and having been obliged, although reluctantly, to part from her for that time, he handed Lady Hamlet Vernon to her carriage and bent his way home. He felt it a relief to be alone, in order to take a review more collectedly of what was passing in his own breast: but yet, when he commenced the task, he found a contradiction of thoughts and feelings which were so involved that for a time he yielded to them, and they alternately swayed him in opposite directions, without his being able to come to any decision.
On considering the length of time, and the intimate footing on which Mr. Foley had lived at Dunmelraise (notwithstanding the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, as the son of Lady Dunmelraise's dearest friend, and her own _protégé_), on recalling his descriptions and praises of Lady Adeline when they met at Restormel, he thought he saw a confirmation of his worst fears. What, he asked himself, could induce a young man to seek so lonely and retired a situation but love? And Lady Dunmelraise he thought must have approved his views, or she would not have suffered such an intimacy to subsist, even though as her friend's child she received him under her roof; at least it was evident that she chose to give her daughter an opportunity of turning her affections from that quarter to which they had been originally directed. Adeline's letters, too, so equable in their expression of calm content, so lavish in Mr. Foley's praise, so minute in her detail of his way of thinking and manner of feeling, showed that had she not been more than commonly interested in him, she could not have thus busied herself with analysing his character.