arlotte's favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called
upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was
weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the
dragon's teeth from which were to spring up armed demons that would
rend and tear him. But Charlotte's eyes were unspeakably bright and
bewitching, and Charlotte's voice was very sweet and tender. A
thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent
person in Charlotte's consideration had possessed him of late when he
found himself in that young lady's society, and a happiness which had
hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest to his purposeless life.

He still affected the old indifference of manner, the idle listless
tone of a being who has finished with all the joys and sorrows,
affections and aspirations, of the world in which he lives. But the
pretence had of late become a very shallow one. In Charlotte's presence
he was eager and interested in spite of himself--childishly eager about
the veriest trifles which interested her. Love had taken up the glass
of Time; and the days and hours were reckoned by a new standard;
everything in the world had suffered some wondrous change, which
Valentine Hawkehurst tried in vain to understand. The very earth upon
which he walked had undergone some mystic process of transformation;
the very streets of London were new to him. He had known
Kensington-gardens from his boyhood; but not those enchanted avenues of
beech and elm in which he walked with Charlotte. In the plainest and
most commonplace phraseology, Mr. Hawkehurst had fallen in love. This
penniless adventurer, who at eight-and-twenty years of age was steeped
to the lips in the worst experiences of a very indifferent world, found
himself all at once hanging upon the words and living upon the looks of
an ignorant schoolgirl.

The discovery that he was capable of this tender weakness had an almost
overwhelming effect upon Mr. Hawkehurst. He was ashamed of this touch
of humanity, this foolish affection which had awakened all that was
purest and best in a nature that had been so long abandoned to
degrading influences. For some time he fought resolutely against that
which he considered his folly; but the training which had made him the
master of many a perplexing position had not given him the mastery over
his own inclinations; and when he found that Charlotte's society had
become the grand necessity of his life, h