His passion remained, but his poetry was gone. He
was all confidence, and gaiety, and love, and panted for the moment when
he could place his mother's coronet on the only head that was worthy to
share the proud fortunes of the house of Hauteville.
'Luigi, I will rise. What is going on to-day?' 'The gentlemen are all
out, your Grace.'
'And the ladies?'
'Are going to the Archery Ground, your Grace.'
'Ah! she will be there, Luigi?'
'Yes, your Grace.'
'My robe, Luigi.'
'Yes, your Grace.'
'I forgot what I was going to say. Luigi!'
'Yes, your Grace.'
'Luigi, Luigi, Luigi,' hummed the Duke, perfectly unconscious, and
beating time with his brush. His valet stared, but more when his lord,
with eyes fixed on the ground, fell into a soliloquy, not a word of
which, most provokingly, was audible, except to my reader.
'How beautiful she looked yesterday upon the keep when she tried to
find Dacre! I never saw such eyes in my life! I must speak to Lawrence
immediately. I think I must have her face painted in four positions,
like that picture of Lady Alice Gordon by Sir Joshua. Her full face
is sublime; and yet there is a piquancy in the profile, which I am not
sure--and yet again, when her countenance is a little bent towards you,
and her neck gently turned, I think that is, after all--but then
when her eyes meet yours, full! oh! yes! yes! yes! That first look at
Doncaster! It is impressed upon my brain like self-consciousness.
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