“But you forget; I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe in the light of a featherbrained schoolgirl. Was she not my divinity⁠—the angel of my career?”

“Hem! There was your mistake.”

“To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance, there actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her divine. Do you remember our conversation about the presents? I was not quite open with you in discussing that subject; the warmth with which you took it up amused me. By way of having the full benefit of your lights, I allowed you to think me more in the dark than I really was. It was that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal. Still her beauty retained its fascination; three days⁠—three hours ago, I was very much her slave. As she passed me tonight, triumphant in beauty, my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I should yet be the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at me , and, while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me through myself, she could not in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done through my mother.”