Her husband was a traitor in disguise. She found
herself betrayed; but like a noble chieftain, when her capital was lost,
maintained herself among the ruins of her happiness, in the citadel of
her virtue. She surrendered, she thought, on terms; and in yielding her
heart to the young Duke, though never for a moment blind to her conduct,
yet memory whispered extenuation, and love added all that was necessary.
Our hero (we are for none of your perfect heroes) did not behave much
better than her husband. The difference between them was, Sir Lucius
Grafton's character was formed, and formed for evil; while the Duke
of St. James, when he became acquainted with Lady Aphrodite, possessed
none. Gallantry was a habit, in which he had been brought up. To protest
to woman what he did not believe, and to feign what he did not feel,
were, as he supposed, parts in the character of an accomplished
gentleman; and as hitherto he had not found his career productive of
any misery, we may perhaps view his conduct with less severity. But at
length he approaches, not a mere woman of the world, who tries to delude
him into the idea that he is the first hero of a romance that has been
a hundred times repeated.
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