On gaining the street, Charles Hatfield hurried along like one demented,--positively reeling with the influence which Perdita’s charms, allurements, and arts had shed upon him,--and feeling within his soul a glow of such ineffable happiness that he appeared to have been snatched from the world and wafted to Elysium. Had he just quitted a banquet where his head had been pillowed on the bosom of beauty, and the fair hands of the charmer had held to his lips brimming goblets of champagne of which he had drunk deeply, he would not have experienced a more extraordinary degree of excitement, nor such felicitous sensations. [Illustration] But the moment of reaction came; and though the revulsion was slow, yet it was powerful--and even painful. He had found his way into Saint James’s Park; and hurrying to the most secluded quarter, he was still giving rein to the luxuriousness of his thoughts, when it suddenly flashed to his mind that he had not received from the lips of Mrs. Fitzhardinge the important communications which she had promised him. Indeed, he had not seen her again from the moment when she showed him into the drawing-room where he had found the lovely creature to whom his friendship--his eternal friendship was so solemnly plighted. Striking his repeater,--for obscurity reigned in that portion of the park where he now was, and he could not see the position of the hands of his watch,--he was amazed to discover that his interview with Perdita had lasted two hours. Two hours!--and it scarcely seemed to have occupied ten minutes! But now his reasoning faculties returned;--and he began to ask himself innumerable questions. “Wherefore was I conducted to that house? was it really to receive important revelations from the mother? or only to be thrown into the way of the daughter? Why did not the mother make her appearance once during those two hours which I passed with the daughter? Was it a stratagem devised by designing women to ensnare me? or was Mrs. Fitzhardinge unexpectedly prevented from joining us so soon as she had intended? My God! I am bewildered--I know not what to think! For if they be women of evil repute and having sinister aims in view, Perdita would not have given me to understand that they are at ease in their circumstances, and hope to be even rich very shortly? But that young creature--so beautiful,--so indescribably--so enchantingly beautiful,--what object could she have in pledging her friendship to me--to _me_, a stranger whom she had never seen before? Fool that I am! wherefore did I give a similar promise to her? Oh! it was in a moment of delirium--of enchantment--of intoxication;--and might it not also have been the same with her? Ah! that belief would denote a boundless vanity on my part;--and yet women have their sudden caprices--their instantaneous attachments, as well as men! Yes--it must be so--Perdita loves me!--she loves me--and I already love her deeply--madly, in return!”