"Blanche!--Lady Blanche!" cried I, as my head swam round in a strange confusion, and a dim and misty vapour danced before my eyes.
"Is this a visit, Mr. Templeton?" said she, with that soft smile I had loved so well; "am I to take this surprise for a visit?"
"I really--I cannot understand--I thought--I was certain that I was in my own apartment. I believed I was in Paris, in the Hôtel des Princes."
"Yes, and most correct were all your imaginings; only that at this moment you are _chez moi_--this is our apartment, No. 12."
"Oh, forgive me, I beg, Lady Blanche!--the similarity of the rooms, the inattentive habit of an invalid, has led to this mistake."
"I heard you had been ill," said she, in an accent full of melting tenderness; while taking a seat on a sofa, by a look rather than an actual gesture she motioned me to sit beside her: "you are much paler than you used to be."
"I have been ill," said I, struggling to repress emotion and a fit of coughing together.
"It is that dreadful life of England, depend upon it," said she eagerly; "that fearful career of high excitement and dissipation combined--the fatigues of parliament--the cares and anxieties of party--the tremendous exertions for success--the torturing dread of failure. Why didn't you remain in diplomacy?"
"It looked so very like idling," said I, laughingly, and endeavouring to assume something of her own easy tone.
"So it is. But what better can one have, after all?" said she, with a faint sigh.
"When they are happy," added I, stealing a glance at her beneath my eyelids. She turned away, however, before I had succeeded, and I could merely mark that her breathing was quick and hurried.
"I hope you have no grudge towards Favancourt?" said she hastily, and with a manner that shewed how difficult it was to disguise agitation. "He would be delighted to see you again! He is always talking of your success in the House, and often prophesies the most brilliant advancement for you."
"I have outlived resentment," said I, in a low whisper: "would that I could add, other feelings were as easily forgotten."
Not at once catching my meaning, she turned her full and lustrous eyes upon me, and then suddenly aware of my words, or reading the explanation in my own looks, she blushed deeply, and after a pause said,