In this pause of the dance Lady Adeline had an opportunity of recovering her presence of mind; and, calling to her aid the just indignation which Lord Albert's conduct inspired, she felt herself armed against the tenderer feelings; and by what she construed his treachery and desertion, she was enabled to steel her heart to every soft emotion, and not afford greater triumph to her rival, or greater gratification to his self-love, by betraying any marks of sensibility. This idea, together with what she owed her mother, whose feelings she well knew would be deeply wounded if through weakness she made any public disclosure of her suffering, enabled Lady Adeline to rally her spirits sufficiently to go through her painful part with apparent ease and indifference; and so completely did she obtain the mastery over herself, that perhaps no one, save Lady Hamlet Vernon, was conscious of the workings of that breast, the peace of which she was perfidiously destroying. Lord Albert even was a stranger to what she endured; for, blind to the errors of his own conduct, he of course became blinded to their consequence, and never attributed Lady Adeline's behaviour towards him to the natural result of his own in respect to her. It is ever thus:--we look not to our errors as the cause of the misfortunes which befall us, and the pains and penalties to which we are doomed.
From the moment Lord Albert first beheld Mr. Foley dancing with Lady Adeline, he had remained transfixed to the spot. And how can language render by its slow process the thousand rapid feelings which gush simultaneously from the heart, and seem to pass through the mind at the same moment? Jealousy, indignation, scorn (though love in ambush was concealed beneath these bitter passions), alternately distracted him. The mother and daughter he alike accused of subtilty and subterfuge. He recalled to mind Lady Dunmelraise's manner to him; her words especially, and her expression, on the subject of the breakfast; Adeline's feigned indifference to it, now contrasted with her actual presence there, dancing with Mr. Foley. All these circumstances seemed to confirm the fatal truth; and disappointed love and mortified vanity, and a sense of having been deceived, juggled, contemned, were struggling at one and the same moment for ascendancy in his bosom. In this state of mind, the time, the place, the whole scene, save only this one prominent feature of interest, were to him as though they existed not. As the dance drew to a close, he asked himself what line of conduct he should pursue. Should he speak to Lady Adeline in a language of reproach? should he give utterance to his feelings in a few brief words of overwhelming import? No, he would not; it was beneath him. And if she _was_ unworthy, and had forgotten what was due to him and to _herself_, _he_ would never forget what was due to _her_. Could he address Adeline with calm indifference?--impossible!--his heart would not second the deception.