Page:Glenarvon (Volume 1).djvu/45

 he had followed her; for, at a glance, he had penetrated her secret. With a smile of scorn he upbraided her for her weakness.—"What! in tears lady!" he said: "is it possible? can a marriage, a disappointment in love, overpower you thus!" Lady Margaret affecting a calmness, she could not feel, and opposing art to art, endeavoured to repel his taunting expressions. But he knew her thoughts: he saw at once through the smiles and assumed manners which blinded others; and at this moment he watched her countenance with malignant delight. It was the face of an Angel, distorted by the passions of a Dæmon; and he liked it, not the less for the frailty it betrayed.

It happened, however, that he had just attained the means of turning the tide of her resentment out of its present channel, and, by awakening her ambition—her ruling passion, of at once quenching the dying embers of every softer feeling. "You have read I per