To and fro, to and fro, she wandered, scarcely knowing what she wanted, only urged by that unbearable restlessness that gave her no respite.  Of the future ahead of her she did not definitely think.  Her marriage still seemed too intangible a matter for serious contemplation.  She still in her child’s heart believed that marriage would make a difference.  He would not make such ardent love to her when they were married.  They would both have so many other things to think about.  It was the present that so weighed upon her, her lover’s almost appalling intensity of worship and her own utter inadequacy and futility.

Again, as often before, the question arose within her, How would Rose have met the situation?  Would she have been dismayed?  Would she have shrunk from those fiery kisses?  Or could she—­could she possibly—­have remained calm and complacent and dignified in the midst of those surging tempests of love?  But yet again she failed completely to picture Rose so mastered, so possessed, by any man; Rose the queen whom all men worshipped with reverence from afar.  She wondered again how Sir Eustace had managed to elude the subtle charm she cast upon all about her.  He had actually declared that her perfection bored him.  It was evident that she left him cold.  Dinah marvelled at the fact, so certain was she that had he humbled himself to ask for Rose’s favour it would have been instantly and graciously accorded to him.

It would have saved a lot of trouble if he had fallen in love with Rose, she reflected; and then the old thrill of triumph went through her, temporarily buoying her up.  She had been preferred to Rose.  She had beaten Rose on her own ground, she the little, insignificant adjunct of the de Vigne party!  She was glad—­oh, she was very glad!—­that Rose was to have so close a view of her final conquest.

She began to take comfort in the thought of her approaching wedding and all its attendant glories, picturing every detail with girlish zest.  To be the queen of such a brilliant ceremony as that!  To be received into the County as one entering a new world!  To belong to that Society from which her mother had been excluded!  To be in short—­her ladyship.

A new excitement began to urge Dinah.  She picked up a towel and draped it about her head and shoulders like a bridal veil.  Her mother would have rated her for such vanity, but for the moment vanity was her only comfort, and the thought of her mother did not trouble her.  This was how she would look on her wedding-day.  There would be a wreath of orange-blossoms of course; Isabel would see to that.  And—­yes, Isabel had said that her bouquet should be composed of lilies-of-the-valley.  She even began to wish it were her wedding morning.

The glamour spread like a rosy dawning; she forgot the clouds that loomed immediately ahead.  Standing there in her night attire, poised like a brown wood-nymph on the edge of a pool, she asked herself for the first time if it were possible that she could have any pretensions to beauty.  It was not in the least likely, of course.  Her mother had always railed at her for the plainness of her looks.  Did Eustace—­did Scott—­think her plain?  She wondered.  She wondered.