By seven or eight the castle courtyard was comparatively empty, and the Baron, weary from the mere bodily efforts of saying farewell to so many, had flung himself at full length on a couch in the drawing-room.
During the whole of this time Felix had not obtained a single moment with Aurora; her time, when not occupied in attending to the guests, was always claimed by Lord Durand.

Felix, after the short-lived but pure pleasure he had enjoyed in watching her upon the grass-grown stage, had endured three days of misery.

He was among the crowd, he was in the castle itself, he sat at table with the most honoured visitors, yet he was distinct from all.

There was no sympathy between them and him.

The games, the dancing, the feasting and laughter, the ceaseless singing and shouting, and jovial jostling, jarred upon him.
The boundless interest the people took in the combats, and especially that of the thirty, seemed to him a strange and inexplicable phenomenon.
It did not excite him in the least; he could turn his back upon it without hesitation.