Impartial! If they only knew! “She is always bright,” he said with a suppressed passion, the meaning of which Frances divined suddenly, almost with a cry, with a start and thrill of sudden certainty, which took away her breath. “But for happy, I cannot tell. It is not good enough for her, out there.” “No? Thank you, Captain Gaunt, for appreciating my child. I was afraid it was not much of a sphere for her. What company has she? Is there anything going on----?” “Mamma,” said Frances, “I told you--there is never anything going on.” The young soldier shook his head. “There is no society--except the Durants--and ourselves--who are not interesting,” he said, with a somewhat ghastly smile. “The Durants are the clergyman’s family?--and yourselves. I think she might have been worse off. I am sure Mrs Gaunt has been kind to my wayward girl,” she said, looking him in the face with that charming smile. “Kind!” he cried, as if the word were a profanation. “My mother is too happy to do--anything. But Miss Waring,” he added with a feeble smile, “has little need of--any one. She has so many resources--she is so far above----” He got inarticulate here, and stumbled in his speech, growing very red. Frances watched him under her eyelids with a curious sensation of pain. He was very much in earnest, very sad, yet transported out of his langour and misery by Constance’s name. Now Frances had heard of George Gaunt for years, and had unconsciously allowed her thoughts to dwell upon him, as has been mentioned in another part of this history. His arrival, had it not happened in the midst of other excitements which preoccupied her, would have been one of the greatest excitements she had ever known. She remembered now that when it did happen, there had been a faint, almost imperceptible, touch of disappointment in it, in the fact that his whole attention was given to Constance, and that for herself, Frances, he had no eyes. But in the moment of seeing him again she had forgotten all that, and had gone back to her previous prepossession in his favour, and his mother’s certainty that Frances and her George would be “great friends.” Now she understood with instant divination the whole course of affairs. He had given his heart to Constance, and she had not prized the gift. The discovery gave her an acute, yet vague (if that could be), impression of pain. It was she, not Constance, that had been prepossessed in his favour. Had Constance not been there, no doubt she would have been thrown much into the society of George Gaunt--and--who could tell what might have happened? All this came before her like the sudden opening of a landscape hid by fog and mists. Her eyes swept over it, and then it was gone. And this was what never had been, and never would be.