"When first I met Lord Effingham at Naples," began Lady Desmond, withdrawing her arm from Kate, and resting the other against the window-frame, "I had been rather bored by the perpetual gossip about him always floating in the society there, and, at the same time, I was intensely fatigued by the utter absence of anything like interest in the world at large. I had no particular object--I was so perfectly my own mistress--I had not even the excitement of imagining what I would do if I could, for I had the power of accomplishing every rational wish. I was wearied of the excessive attentions and admiration of a dozen needy adorers, and, in short, _ennuye'd_. In this happy and commendable frame of mind, I dragged myself listlessly to a birthday dinner at the English Ambassador's; and accident placed me next a gentleman, so quietly _distingué_, that nine out of ten observers, would not have noticed him; my attention was attracted by his being a stranger in a circle where each was known to each, and I was rather surprised when Lady W---- introduced him to me as Lord Effingham. He handed me down to dinner; but if I give you all these frivolous particulars, I shall not come to the end of my story until morning. There was an indescribable fascination for me in his manner. You must have observed the sense of power it conveys--the impression that there is something ever to be revealed, which you can never fathom, while he reads all your thoughts; the constant air of cool indifference you have seen; but the occasional softness, so exquisite in its flattering suggestions, you have not. Ah, Kate, I little thought as I drove home that night, feeling life had still something left to wish for, something still to excite, that the time would come when I as ardently desired to have that passage wiped away from my existence. "I met Lord Effingham in society frequently, and he was the only man, amongst those of our circle, who did not enter himself as an aspirant for my smiles--to use the wretched _jargon_ of those idlers--I will not say this piqued me. Pique is too weak, too French a term, to express the scorn of myself, with which his neglect filled me; he only considered me a fitting object of admiration for the vulgar mob. Yet there was a sympathy between us, that, though we seldom spoke, linked us strangely. Gradually--I cannot tell how it was--we became more intimate, and my very soul was absorbed in the intense longing to make him feel that I was not powerless. At length, I saw I was admired--I read it in his eyes a thousand times, and no longer unoccupied and listless, every faculty at its fullest stretch, both to feel and to conceal what I felt; for I dreaded either the world, or Lord Effingham, obtaining even the slightest clue to the state of my mind; then, Kate, then, for the first time, I tasted all the wild excitement--all the concentrated vitality of which life is capable."