Miss Lovel had allowed
herself to feel an almost morbid interest in Mr. Fairfax's betrothed. She
had watched Lady Geraldine from day to day, half unconsciously, almost in
spite of herself, wondering whether she really loved her future husband, or
whether this alliance were only the dreary simulacrum she had read of
in fashionable novels--a marriage of convenience. Lady Laura; certainly
declared that her sister was much attached to Mr. Fairfax; but then, in
an artificial world, where such a mode of marrying and giving in marriage
obtained, it would obviously be the business of the bride's relatives to
affect a warm belief in her affection for the chosen victim. In all her
watching Clarissa had never surprised one outward sign of Geraldine
Challoner's love. It was very difficult for a warm-hearted impulsive girl
to believe in the possibility of any depth of feeling beneath that coldly
placid manner. Nor did she perceive in Mr. Fairfax himself many of those
evidences of affection which she would have expected from a man in his
position. It was quite true that as the time of his marriage drew near he
devoted himself more and more exclusively to his betrothed; but Clarissa
could not help fancying, among her many fancies about these two people,
that them was something formal and ceremonial in his devotion; that he had,
at the best, something of the air of a man who was doing his duty.
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