Sink or Swim? , Volume II by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

Time was speeding away in the fair grounds of Danescourt; the / trotting-match had been trotted, and the rat-tailed horse had won the / race. Colonel Norcott was triumphant; and the _déjeuner à la fourchette_ / had put everyone -- men, women, and children -- more or less, into still / higher spirits than before. As yet, Honor, not at all, as we know, to / her surprise, had seen nothing of Arthur Vavasour. The latter had given / tolerably truthful reasons for his change of purpose. "Circumstances / over which" he believed that "he had no control" were accountable for / his appearance at Danescourt that day; but that he had greatly rejoiced / in silence over those same adverse circumstances was a corollary with / which he had not found it necessary to garnish his statement. And yet / the same reasons for his absence, which had before appeared to him such / wise and prudent ones, were in as full force _now_ as they had been / when Arthur Vavasour decided in his own mind that he would be insane to / place himself at the same time within sight and reach both of his / _fiancée_ and the woman whom absence had only rendered still more dear / to him.

"I will not go near her, I will only watch her from a distance; my / beautiful Honor! my sweet fairy rose! And it shall be the last time, the / very last! In a short time -- ah, how very short! -- the die will be cast; / my fate will be sealed, and I shall be hundreds of miles away, with only / the memory of my darling to link me with the past."

Some such thoughts as these -- selfish, self-pitying, wicked / thoughts -- were passing through Arthur Vavasour's mind when Colonel / Norcott met him on the course, and lightly talked to him of his love. / And since that moment, -- while joining groups of acquaintances, uttering / unmeaning love-speeches into the ear of his betrothed, or endeavouring / to assume an interest which he felt not in the fate of Farmer Scroop's / rat-tailed trotter -- he never for many moments together lost mental sight / of Honor Beacham, never ceased to remember that at any turn of the road, / under any spreading tree -- where smiles and merriment, and the ringing / sounds of youthful voices, and the pretty colouring of woman's dress / gave life and animation, he might chance to see his lovely Honor, and / there perchance betray, by an unguarded word or look, to other eyes than / Norcott's the secret of his heart.

But if Arthur Vavasour thought a good deal during those swiftly passing / hours of Honor Beacham, that rather _insouciante_ young woman did not (a / fact which, had he known it, would not have greatly improved the temper / of her admirer) trouble her pretty little head much about him. That she / should not so have done (albeit Mr. Vavasour stood foremost in her mind / as the finished type of all that was handsome, agreeable, and / accomplished) is very easily to be accounted for. The scene to Honor was / so deliciously new, and so untiringly interesting. Never, during that / short life of hers, had she witnessed anything so gay, so grand, or so / fascinating. In the dresses of the ladies alone she could have feasted / her unaccustomed eyes for hours; and when to these was added the charm / of their contagious laughter, and the latent enjoyment of knowing / herself to be both observed and admired, can we wonder that Honor should / scarcely have found time to greatly regret the absence of her friend?

Once, indeed, she thought of him; thought of him too very sadly, as of / one who was far away, and whom it might be very long, years perhaps, / before she met again. It was the sound of the trumpets and trombones, / the brazen serpents and the wailing cornets, that touched the minor / chord of melancholy in her impulsive breast. The band had been (with the / regiment to which it belonged) to the Russian war, and the perfume of / glory, for those simple Sandyshire people, hung -- though many a year had / passed since their return from "foreign parts" -- about those military / musicians still. The air they played was that sad, yet stirring parting / one, that plaintive _Partant pour la Syrie_, which has so often fallen / upon loving hearts as the knell of buried hopes, the echo of farewells / between young loving hearts doomed never to meet this side the grave for / ever. Honor listened in dreamy silence to "the lengthened sweetness long / drawn out" of the suggestive notes, and then, in spite of surrounding / merriment and the shouts of boisterous mirth, the tears rose to her long / lashes, and but for very shame she could have turned aside to weep.