The elder gentleman, for the first time in many months, checkmated his adversary in two moves, and won the game in an unprecedentedly short space of time.
Holworthy’s advice was given after a week’s deliberation. It was in favor of sending Miss Almsford to her father’s sister, who lived in London, in order that she might be presented at court and introduced to English society. Mr. Almsford thought over the advice, which appeared to him wise. He consulted Millicent, who eagerly accepted the chance to see something of the world; and finally, after six months’ exchange of letters upon the subject, the girl was taken to London by her father, and comfortably established, with her aunt, in a pretty Kensington villa, for which her poorly circumstanced relative gladly forsook a small house in an unfashionable quarter of the town. Having married a younger son of a great house, with no portion but debts on his part and beauty on hers, Millicent’s aunt, with the matchless tact of our countrywomen, had secured herself a prominent and agreeable position in London society. In mere worldly advantages the young girl could have had no better chaperone than the pretty young woman, still occupied with bets, beaux, and bon-bons. She took her niece to all the best houses; and soon Millicent’s extreme beauty, and the widely noised, somewhat exaggerated accounts of her worldly goods, brought her scores of invitations and admirers on her own account.
Six months after her departure, Millicent Almsford returned to the Palazzo Fortunio, where the report of her great social success had preceded her and tickled the ears of her parent, proud of the child for whose sake he had never sacrificed a whim of his own. Edward Holworthy, who had accompanied the father and daughter to London, and remained there during the period of the latter’s stay, did not return to Venice, but sailed for Australia, from whence he never returned either to his native or to his adopted country. The change which her half year’s absence had wrought in Millicent, her father attributed to her social experience. She had left him half a child, with a thousand absurd, whimsical ways, which had amused him, and endeared her to him more than any other trait in her character. Few things diverted him; and he counted every laugh which Millicent provoked from him as a positive good, which he set down to her credit in their joint account. Her stay in London had given Millicent a certain poise and manner which suited her marvellously well; but all the sparkle and freshness seemed to have left her. She was like a fresh, white lily which has been broken and wilted by a violent storm of wind and rain. For months she never smiled. Her life seemed to have come to a standstill; she suffered dumbly, hopelessly, with sad, deep eyes, made more beautiful by the trouble in them. A sceptic and a materialist, she found nothing in this world worth suffering for, and smiled incredulously when the old curé, her Latin teacher, tried to help her from the slough of earthly despair by promises of a glorious future, for whose attainment the life-battle should be bravely fought. She was conscious of no ethereal essence which should outlive the graceful body, whose beauty she sometimes cursed. Did it not reduce her to the level of all hunted creatures? Was she not a thing to be pursued by men, like a tall deer or a fleet, timid hare?