Then she grew frightened at Beauclerc’s looks of astonishment--feared he would ask explanation--avoided him more and more. Then, on the other hand, she feared he might guess and interpret _wrong_, or rather _right_, this change; and back she changed, tried in vain to keep the just medium--she had lost the power of measuring--altogether she was very unhappy, and so was Beauclerc; he found her incomprehensible, and thought her capricious. His own mind was fluttered with love, so that he could not see or judge distinctly, else he might have seen the truth; and sometimes, though free from conceit, he did hope it might be all love. But why then so determined to discourage him? he had advanced sufficiently to mark his intentions, she could not doubt his sincerity. He would see farther before he ventured farther. He thought a man was a fool who proposed before he had tolerable reason to believe he should not be refused. Lord Beltravers and his sisters were now expected at Old Forest immediately, and Beauclerc went thither early every morning, to press forward the preparations for the arrival of the family, and he seldom returned till dinner-time; and every evening Lady Castlefort contrived to take possession of him. It appeared to be indeed as much against his will as it could be between a well-bred man and a high-bred belle; but to do her bidding, seemed if not a moral, at least a polite necessity. She had been spoiled, she owned, by foreign attentions, not French, for that is all gone now at Paris, but Italian manners, which she so much preferred. She did not know how she could live out of Italy, and she must convince Lord Castlefort that the climate was necessary for her health. Meanwhile she adopted, she acted, what she conceived to be foreign manners, and with an exaggeration common with those who have very little sense and a vast desire to be fashionable with a certain set. Those who knew her best (all but her sister Katrine, who shook her head,) were convinced that there was really no harm in Lady Castlefort, “only vanity and folly.” How frequently folly leads farther than fools ever, or wise people often foresee, we need not here stop to record. On the present occasion, all at Clarendon Park, even those most inclined to scandal, persons who, by the by, may be always known by their invariable preface of, “I hate all scandal,” agreed that “no one _so far_ could behave better than Granville Beauclerc--so far,”--“as yet.” But all the elderly who had any experience of this world, all the young who had any intuitive prescience in these matters, could not but fear that things could not long go on as they were now going. It was sadly to be feared that so young a man, and so very handsome a man, and such an admirer of beauty, and grace, and music, and of such an enthusiastic temper, must be in danger of being drawn on farther than he was aware, and before he knew what he was about.