“Oh! how changed,” exclaimed she, fixing her large blue eyes upon me.

“Prosperity changes us all, Miss de Clare.  I wish you a very good morning;” and I turned away, and crossed the hall to the door.

As I went out I could not help looking back, and I perceived that Cecilia’s handkerchief was held to her eyes, as she slowly mounted the stairs.  I walked home to the Piazza in no very pleasant humour.  I was angry and disgusted at the coolness of my reception.  I thought myself ill used, and treated with ingratitude.  “So much for the world,” said I, as I sat down in my apartment, and spun my hat on the table.  “She has been out two seasons, and is no longer the same person.  Yet how lovely she has grown!  But why this change—­and why was Harcourt there?  Could he have prejudiced them against me?  Very possibly.”  While these ideas were running in my mind, and I was making comparisons between Cecilia de Clare and Susannah Temple—­not much in favour of the former—­and looking forward prospectively to the meeting with my father, the doubts as to my reception in society colouring everything with the most sombre tints, the door opened, and in walked Harcourt, announced by the waiter.

“A chair for Mr Harcourt,” said I to the waiter, with formality.

“Newland,” said Harcourt, “I come for two reasons:  in the first place, I am commissioned by the ladies, to assure you—­”

“I beg your pardon, Mr Harcourt, for interrupting you, but I require no ambassador from the ladies in question.  They may make you their confidant if they please, but I am not at all inclined to do the same.  Explanation, after what I witnessed and felt this morning, is quite unnecessary.  I surrender all claims upon either Lady de Clare or her daughter, if I ever was so foolhardy as to imagine that I had any.  The first reason of your visit it is therefore useless to proceed with.  May I ask the other reason which has procured me this honour?”

“I hardly know, Mr Newland,” replied Harcourt, colouring deeply, “whether, after what you have now said, I ought to proceed with the second—­it related to myself.”

“I am all attention, Mr Harcourt,” replied I, bowing politely.

“It was to say, Mr Newland, that I should have taken the earliest opportunity after my recovery, had you not disappeared so strangely, to have expressed my sorrow for my conduct towards you, and to have acknowledged that I had been deservedly punished:  more perhaps by my own feelings of remorse, than by the dangerous wound I had received by your hand.  I take even this opportunity, although not apparently a favourable one, of expressing what I consider it my duty, as a gentleman who has wronged another, to express.  I certainly was going to add more, but there is so little chance of its being well received, that I had better defer it to some future opportunity.  The time may come, and I certainly trust it will come, when I may be allowed to prove to you that I am not deserving of the coolness with which I am now received.  Mr Newland, with every wish for your happiness, I will now take my leave; but I must say, it is with painful sentiments, as I feel that the result of this interview will be the cause of great distress to those who are bound to you, not only by gratitude, but sincere regard.”