If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon’s beauty, I suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed under any strong feeling.  But this defect it would have been hard to discover on this first occasion of our meeting.  She looked so bright and joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy’s dark features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a proud happiness.  She received me very cordially, and I well remember the pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft and low as Cordelia’s.  In these two attributes it resembled that of Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different—­as different as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong sweet wine.  We had taken two or three turns, when a large party approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss Bellasys.  If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to the stride of the horse—­perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and graceful.

Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school—­“Watch your enemy’s eyes, not his blade;” and I caught Flora’s, as she raised her head after returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them thoroughly.  I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on her rival.  I saw them melt with passionate eagerness as for one brief moment they followed Guy’s retreating figure and averted face.  Half of Mohun’s warning became superfluous after that.  I was in no danger of being deceived by “Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly.”

Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that Livingstone’s choice was in some respects a mistake.  They were not suited to each other.  Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover’s proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without attending sufficiently to the “suaviter in modo”; for, when it was a question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel.  Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way.  She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had been unused to the slightest control.  To speak the truth, too, she was not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, and made her manner seem constrained and cold.