Sink or Swim? , Volume I by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

After the departure from the neighbourhood of Arthur Vavasour, there / seemed at first to be a great gap in Honor's life. He had told her that / he was going to remain a fortnight or more in London previous to his / marriage, which was to take place there in great form and state on the / last day of August. Arthur had no intention, as he assured Mrs. Beacham, / of being present at the Danescourt festivities. His mother -- that was his / avowed reason -- did not view those festivities, in so far as they / regarded _him_, with a favourable eye; and it was "better taste" (so / Arthur assured his intimate acquaintances, his brother and his sisters / included) to keep away, during Lady Guernsey's well-intended / hospitalities, from his home at Gillingham. His real motive for / absenting himself was, however, a widely different one. He was well / aware that not only would his intended bride be present, to expect, and / with good right and reason, that he should devote himself to her / service, but also that the woman whom it was his fate to love (men are / very apt to account for the indulgence of their evil propensities in / some such irrational manner) with a passion hitherto by him undreamt of / would be a guest though a humble one, within the walls of Danescourt / Park; and those glorious eyes of hers -- Honor's eyes were haunting ones, / and followed or rather _led_ Arthur to what he was pleased to call his / "doom," when he was far away -- would look their wonder if he kept aloof; / an evidence of self-controlling powers, by the way, which Mr. Vavasour, / to do him justice, greatly doubted his own ability on that occasion to / display.

The fêtes -- it was now past the middle of July -- were to commence in three / days' time, and the certainty that her friend would take no part in them / had thrown a little damp on Honor's highly-wrought expectations. The / pretty new dress, another of John's expensive _cadeaux_, was not to her / the "thing of beauty" that it had been when she had wondered to herself, / in all innocence (Honor's thoughts and mind were pure as yet as unsunned / snow), whether Mr. Vavasour would think her well-dressed -- dressed "like / a lady," in short, which was Honor's _ne plus ultra_ of ambition. It / would be a pretty sight -- she could look forward to that; and it was / very good of John to give up a whole afternoon -- two even, he said, if it / would please her and his mother (ah, Honor, how silly it was to half / resent this sharing of your husband's attentions! ) -- to see the / "tomfooleries" at Danescourt. But although Mrs. John Beacham would of / course make her appearance on the croquet and the archery ground, yet / the zest, the charm of the day's amusement, seemed, in some to her / incomprehensible way, to have momentarily departed, if not to be utterly / extinct.