Chapter 48

CHAPTER XLVIII - 'NE'ER TO BE FOUND AGAIN'

'My own, my father's friend!

I cannot part with thee!

I ne'er have shown, thou ne'er hast known,

How dear thou art to me.'

ANON.

The elements of the dinner-parties which Mrs. Lennox gave, were
these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the
easy knowledge of the subjects of the day; and Mr. Henry Lennox
and the sprinkling of rising men who were received as his
friends, brought the wit, the cleverness, the keen and extensive
knowledge of which they knew well enough how to avail themselves
without seeming pedantic, or burdening the rapid flow of
conversation.

These dinners were delightful; but even here Margaret's
dissatisfaction found her out. Every talent, every feeling, every
acquirement; nay, even every tendency towards virtue was used up
as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire, exhausted
itself in sparkle and crackle. They talked about art in a merely
sensuous way, dwelling on outside effects, instead of allowing
themselves to learn what it has to teach. They lashed themselves
up into an enthusiasm about high subjects in company, and never
thought about them when they were alone; they squandered their
capabilities of appreciation into a mere flow of appropriate
words. One day, after the gentlemen had come up into the
drawing-room, Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and addressed her
in almost the first voluntary words he had spoken to her since
she had returned to live in Harley Street.

'You did not look pleased at what Shirley was saying at dinner.'

'Didn't I? My face must be very expressive,' replied Margaret.

'It always was. It has not lost the trick of being eloquent.'

'I did not like,' said Margaret, hastily, 'his way of advocating
what he knew to be wrong--so glaringly wrong--even in jest.'

'But it was very clever. How every word told! Do you remember the
happy epithets?'

'Yes.'

'And despise them, you would like to add. Pray don't scruple,
though he is my friend.'

'There! that is the exact tone in you, that--' she stopped short.

He listened for a moment to see if she would finish her sentence;
but she only reddened, and turned away; before she did so,
however, she heard him say, in a very low, clear voice,--

'If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you
do me the justice to tell me so, and so give me the chance of
learning to please you?'

All these weeks there was no intelligence of Mr. Bell's going to
Milton. He had spoken of it at Helstone as of a journey which he
might have to take in a very short time from then; but he must
have transacted his business by writing, Margaret