All day she had treated him with icy coldness, had scarcely answered his questions with a distant "Yes," or "No;" and to him, the spoilt favorite of women, this conduct had become more and more intolerable.

Yes, his mother had judged her rightly: she allowed herself to be swayed in a most extraordinary manner by her moods; and now even he was to feel the insolence of her haughtiness, of which he had as yet seen nothing.

This repellent coldness bordered on rudeness and he had no mind to submit to it for long.

It was with deep vexation that he watched every turn of her hand, every movement of her body, and the varying expression of her face; and the more the image of this proud maiden sank into his heart the more lovely and perfect he thought her, and the greater grew his desire to see her smile once more, to see her again as sweetly womanly as she had been but yesterday.

Now she was like nothing so much as a splendid marble statue, though he knew indeed that it had a soul--and what a glorious task it would be to free this fair being from herself, as it were, from the foolish tempers that enslaved her, to show her--by severity if need should be--what best beseems a woman, a maiden.
He became more and more exclusively absorbed in watching the young girl, as his mother--who was sitting with Dame Susannah on a couch at some little distance from the players--observed with growing annoyance, and she tried to divert his attention by questions and small errands, so as to give his evident excitement a fresh direction.
Who could have thought, yesterday morning, that her darling would so soon cause her fresh vexation and anxiety.
He had come home just such a man as she and his father could have wished: independent and experienced in the ways of the great world.