Although Godolphin’s person was not of a showy order, there was something about him that always arrested attention. His air; his carriage; his long fair locks; his rich and foreign habits of dress, which his high bearing and intellectual countenance redeemed from coxcombry; all, united, gave something remarkable and distinguished to his appearance; and the interest attached to his fortunes, and to his social reputation for genius and eccentricity, could not fail of increasing the effect he produced when his name was known. From the throng of idlers that gathered around him; from the bows of the great and the smiles of the fair; Godolphin, however, directed his whole notice--his whole soul--to the spot which was hallowed by Constance Vernon. He saw her engaged with a man rich, powerful, and handsome. He saw that she listened to her partner with evident interest--that he addressed her with evident admiration. His heart sank within him; he felt faint and sick; then came anger--mortification; then agony and despair. All his former resolutions--all his prudence, his worldliness, his caution, vanished at once; he felt only that he loved, that he was supplanted, that he was undone. The dark and fierce passions of his youth, of a nature in reality wild and vehement, swept away at once the projects and the fabrics of that shallow and chill philosophy he had borrowed from the world, and deemed the wisdom of the closet. A cottage and a desert with Constance--Constance all his--heart and hand--would have been Paradise: he would have nursed no other ambition, nor dreamed of a reward beyond. Such effect has jealousy upon us. We confide, and we hesitate to accept a boon: we are jealous, and we would lay down life to attain it. “What a handsome fellow Erpingham is!” said a young man in a cavalry regiment. Godolphin heard and groaned audibly. “And what a devilish handsome girl he is dancing with!” said another young man, from Oxford. “Oh, Miss Vernon!--By Jove, Erpingham seems smitten. What a capital thing it would be for her!” “And for him, too!” cried the more chivalrous Oxonian. “Humph!” said the officer. “I heard,” renewed the Oxonian, “that she was to be married to young Godolphin. He was staying here a short time ago. They rode and walked together. What a lucky fellow he has been. I don’t know any one I should so much like to see.” “Hush!” said a third person, looking at Godolphin. Percy moved on. Accomplished and self-collected as he usually was, he could not wholly conceal the hell within. His brow grew knit and gloomy: he scarcely returned the salutations he received; and moving out of the crowd, he stole to a seat behind a large pillar, and, scarcely seen by any one, fixed his eyes on the form and movements of Miss Vernon. It so happened that he had placed himself in the vicinity of the Duchess of Winstoun, and within hearing of the conversation that I am about to record.