"You have been dancing?" said she.

"No!"

"What then?"

"What then?" said Godolphin. "Ah, Lady Delmour, do not ask." The look
that accompanied the word, supplied them with a meaning. "Need I add,"
said he, in a lower voice, "that I have been thinking of the most
beautiful person present?"

"Pooh," said Lady Delmour, turning away her head. Now, that _pooh_ is
a very significant word. On the lips of a man of business, it denotes
contempt for romance; on the lips of a politician it rebukes a theory.
With that monosyllable, a philosopher massacres a fallacy: by those
four letters a rich man gets rid of a beggar. But in the rosy mouth of a
woman the harshness vanishes, the disdain becomes encouragement. "Pooh!"
says the lady when you tell her she is handsome; but she smiles when she
says it. With the same reply she receives your protestation of love,
and blushes as she receives. With men it is the sternest, with women the
softest, exclamation in the language.

"Pooh!" said Lady Delmour, turning away her head:--and Godolphin was in
singular spirits. What a strange thing that we should call such hilarity
from our gloom! The stroke induces the flash; excite the nerves by
jealousy, by despair, and with the proud you only trace the excitement
by the mad mirth and hysterical laughter it creates. Godolphin was
charming comme un amour, and the young countess was delighted with his
gallantry.

"Did you ever love?" asked she, tenderly, as they sat alone after
supper.

"Alas, yes!" said he.

"How often?"

"Read Marmontel's story of the Four Phials: I have no other answer."

"Oh, what a beautiful tale that is! The whole history of a man's heart
is contained in it."

While Godolphin was thus talking with Lady Delmour, his whole soul
was with Constance; of her only he thought, and on her he thirsted for
revenge. There is a curious phenomenon in love, showing how much vanity
has to do with even the best species of it; when, for your mistress to
prefer another, changes all your affection into hatred:--is it the loss
of the mistress, or her preference to the other? The last, to be sure:
for if the former, you would only grieve--but jealousy does not make you
grieve, it makes you enraged; it does not sadden, it stings. After all,
as we grow old, and look back on the "master passion," how we smile
at the fools it made of us--at the importance we attach to it--of the
millions that have been governed by it! When we examine th