But oh, the difference when he walked out crestfallen through all the big drawing-rooms! Not a word about when It was to be. No sort of arrangement, consultation, possible. Everything had seemed so near when he came--so near that he could almost touch it. Now everything had been pushed far off into the vague. He had seen Jane indeed, but in her mother’s presence, which made her happy enough, but him only partly happy. Was this how it was to be? The Duchess indeed was writing at her table, taking no notice of them. But still it was very different from what he had hoped. He did not perceive the bad pictures or the over-gilding as he went away. The place looked like a prison to him, and was dark and stifling. Lady Jane indeed accompanied him through the rooms. She gave him the rose which he had thought of stealing as he came, and told him all their engagements for a week in advance. “You will be sure to go wherever we are going,” she said, and called him Reginald with a blush and a tone of sweetness that went straight to his heart. But nevertheless his disappointment, he thought, was almost more than he could bear. CHAPTER V. THE ANTICIPATIONS OF LADY JANE. Lady Jane, it will easily be understood, did not look upon the matter at all from the same point of view. A girl, however much she may be in love, is seldom anxious for a peremptory marriage such as--when there is no great sacrifice involved--suits the bolder sex. She loves to play with her happiness, to prolong the sweet time when, without any violent breach of other habits, even any change of name, she can enjoy the added glory of this crown of life. She accompanied Winton through the great silent rooms, with a sense of perfect, quiet happiness which was exactly in accordance with the summer morning--the fresh soft air in which there was no sunshine, but a flood of subdued light, and in which every sound had a tone of enchantment, though not music. It suited her gentle nature to dwell in such an atmosphere of delicate delight, which had no fact to vulgarise it, but only an ecstasy of feeling. She was disappointed to find that he was less satisfied, less happy. And he would have been angry to see that she was so happy. Such are the differences between those most near to each other. He kissed the rosebud and her hands as, with a sense of daring beyond words, she put it into his coat; but he wanted something more. Yes, he could have been angry with her; he felt a desire to say something brutal. “How can you be satisfied to deceive your father?” he asked. “It will be clandestine----” He had the cruelty to say this, though next moment he was horrified, and begged her pardon, metaphorically on his knees. “Clandestine!” she said, with a little surprise--she made allowance for a man’s rough way of speaking--“oh no; my father has never entered into all the circumstances. So long as my mother approves----”