Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/188

180 this prudential policy, Mauleverer then resigned Lucy to her father, and murmuring in her ear, that "her displeasure made him the most wretched of men," concluded his adieu, by a bow penitentially graceful.

About five minutes afterwards, he himself withdrew. As he was wrapping his corporeal treasure in his roquelaire of sables, previous to immersing himself in his chair, he had the mortification of seeing Lucy, who with her father, from some cause or other, had been delayed in the hall, handed to the carriage by Captain Clifford. Had the Earl watched more narrowly, than in the anxious cares due to himself he was enabled to do, he would, to his consolation, have noted that Lucy gave her hand with an averted and cool air, and that Clifford's expressive and beautiful features bore rather the aspect of mortification than triumph.

He did not, however, see more than the action, and as he was borne homeward with his flambeaux and footmen preceding him, and the