“Permit me this privilege at least,” pleaded the prince, gently possessing himself of her fan and beginning to fan her. Alexander set his teeth and ground his heel into the floor, growling within himself: “Confound him, what does he mean? I know I shall have to fight him!” But if Alexander meant to call out all Drusilla’s admirers, who, believing her to be a widow, were ready to become her lovers, he would have his hands as full of fights as the most furious fire-eater might desire. While Prince Ernest was still standing before Drusilla fanning her, and in every admissible manner exhibiting his devotion to her, a very handsome, martial looking man, of about thirty years of age, wearing the uniform of an Austrian field-marshal, and having his breast covered with orders, came up and, bowing low before the beauty, claimed her hand for the quadrille then forming. Alexander knew him for General Count Molaski, an officer high in the Austrian service, and one of the most distinguished foreigners then in London. He led his lovely partner to the floor, where she was soon moving gracefully through the mazes of the dance. “Her head will be turned!—her head will be completely turned! Who would ever have dreamed of her coming _here_ to play the _rôle_ of a beauty—of a queen of beauties—in society! Aye, and with a fortune of her own, and the countenance of General Lyon’s family to sustain her in it. Perdition! I wish to Heaven she had never left Cedarwood—never inherited that fortune—never been taken up by that old Don Quixote, my uncle! _Then_ I might have had some chance of a reconciliation with her; but now—I have no hope at all. If she has not already forgotten me, these flatterers will soon make her do so. Ah! great Heaven, I was certainly blind and mad ever to have left her! I always loved her—when did I love her not? And to have left her whom I did love for Anna whom I only admired! Why, look at Anna now. Only what is commonly called a fine woman here. There are a hundred in this room as pretty as Anna, but look at Drusilla, my wife—she _is_ my wife, after all! She is the most beautiful woman present, and the best dressed. _My_ choice has been endorsed by the verdict of the best judges of beauty the world possesses. She _was_ my choice. _I_ thought her all that these judges have decided her to be. Yes, yes, I thought her so when she was without the adventitious aids of wealth, rank, dress, and general admiration to enhance her charms! How could I have left her? I was mad—just mad! No lunatic in Bedlam ever madder!” By this it will be seen that Alexander Lyon, Lord Killcrichtoun, had in his heart—for no one knows how long—returned to his first love—perhaps his only love—and was now consuming with a hopeless passion for his own discarded wife.