The festivity was altogether successful as regarded Adrienne, Mary, and Edmund. But Miss Blisset cast every now and then fleeting glances at Myles, and was not quite at her ease about him, for he alone of all the party was silent and grave. It was the deep intensity of the delight within him that caused this, but Adrienne could not be supposed to know that--in very truth, as yet she honestly believed the greater admiration and liking to be on her side. That delusion was soon to be ended, but at present she was under its influence. The meal was not long over when she said she must go, and promising Mary to come again, she went away, accompanied by Myles. Their way lay through what was called ‘the Park.’ They turned in at the large iron gates of a town pleasure-ground, laid out in gravel walks, grass plots, seats, and flower-beds. They were on a height. The town lay below, with the gilded spire of the town-hall cleaving the air, and the hazy-looking blue wall of Blackrigg to the north and north-west. As they walked slowly along a broad terrace, unoccupied save by themselves, Adrienne asked, in her quick foreign way, ‘Say to me, Mr. Heywood--you are vexed that I came?’ ‘I--vexed--nay!’ was all that he could say. The current which for the last week had ever been hurrying more and more quickly forward had now arrived at the verge. It leapt over it in a bound, and carried everything before. He was madly in love, and all he could do was to say as little, be as brief as possible, for fear of showing her, startling her, perhaps repelling her; for he was intensely conscious of the difference; all his dearly loved, passionately cherished theories of equality could not blind him to the fact that they were not equals--that while he loved her with a strength that shook his nature with its power, yet the bare thought of touching her, holding her hand, speaking to her on easy and familiar terms, came to him with a sense of impropriety--brought him the conviction, _non sum dignus_. ‘You were so quiet,’ said she. ‘You would hardly speak to me. I was afraid I had offended you.’ ‘Not at all,’ said poor Myles, unable to say more lest he should say too much. ‘I am sure,’ pursued Adrienne, stopping in her walk and looking earnestly at him--‘I am sure you know that I did not mean to offend you; and you could not be so hard as to wish me to keep silence. You behaved splendidly. I felt that I must thank you for it.’ It was growing too much for him to stand there quiescent, and hear that voice, which contained all melody for him, and to see that face, those eyes, looking at him so. The eagerness of desperate love came storming down upon prudence, and hurrying words of devotion to his lips. Mastering himself by a strong effort, and clasping, or rather clenching his hands behind him, he said, in what seemed to Adrienne a singularly calm, colourless voice, ‘You make too much of it. I would rather not be thanked for it.’