He may have done so, for he was a dreamer, cradled in illusions, unfettered by codes, always ready to look upon life as a fairy-tale that was turning out to be true. Whether he did so or not, it seems at any rate pretty clear that he was in Miss Clairmont's confidence, knew for what reason Byron wished to meet him at Geneva, and acquiesced in the proposal. But it is equally certain that he was not in Byron's confidence, and had no suspicion of the spirit in which Byron had entered into the intrigue. For Byron was not in love with Miss Clairmont, and never had been in love with her, and never would be. In so far as he loved at all, he still loved Mary Chaworth, to whom his heart always returned at every crisis of unhappiness. There was no question of any renewal of the old passionate relations; but she consented to see him once more before he left England. "When we two parted in silence and tears" seems to belong to this moment of his life--the moment at which Miss Clairmont first persuaded herself, and then persuaded Shelley, that she was enthroned for ever in the author's heart. That, still, was his one real sentimental hold on life. Nothing else mattered; and the coquetries and audacities of this child of seventeen mattered less than most things. But a man must live; a man must divert himself. Most especially must a man do so when, as Byron expressed it, his household gods lay shivered around him--when his home was broken up and his child was taken away--when rumours as intangible as abominable were afloat to his dishonour--when the society of which he had been the bright particular star was turning its back on him. Even the love, or what passed for such, of a stage-struck girl of seventeen, could be welcome in such a case, and it would not be difficult to give something which could pass for love in return for it. That was what happened--and that was all that happened. Miss Clairmont told Mr. Graham, in so many words, that she never loved Byron, but was only "dazzled" by him. It is written in Byron's letters--from which there shall be quotations in due course--and it is amply demonstrated by his conduct, that he never loved Miss Clairmont, but only accepted favours which she pressed upon him, and suffered her to help him to live at a time when life was difficult. The credit of having done that for him, however, should be freely given to her. The appointment which she made with him at Geneva touched his flight from England with romance. His reception by the generality of English residents on the Continent was very, very doubtful. It would have been painful to him to travel across Europe, defying opinion in solitude; but he and Shelley and Mary Godwin and Jane Clairmont could defy it in company and laugh; and it was with this confident assurance in his mind that, as Hobhouse writes, "the dear fellow pulled off his cap and waved it" when the Ostend packet glided out of Dover harbour. CHAPTER XXIII