‘Ah!’ said the enraptured Cadurcis; ‘this is fame!’

At this moment the Countess approached them, and told Venetia that her mother wished to speak to her.  Lady Annabel had discovered the tete-a-tete, and resolved instantly to terminate it.  Lord Cadurcis, however, who was quick as lightning, read all that was necessary in Venetia’s look.  Instead of instantly retiring, he remained some little time longer, talked to the Countess, who was perfectly enchanted with him, even sauntered up to the singers, and complimented them, and did not make his bow until he had convinced at least the mistress of the mansion, if not her sister-in-law, that it was not Venetia Herbert who was his principal attraction in this agreeable society.

CHAPTER XI.

The moment he had quitted Venetia, Lord Cadurcis returned home.  He could not endure the usual routine of gaiety after her society; and his coachman, often waiting until five o’clock in the morning at Monteagle House, could scarcely assure himself of his good fortune in this exception to his accustomed trial of patience.  The vis-a-vis stopped, and Lord Cadurcis bounded out with a light step and a lighter heart.  His table was covered with letters.  The first one that caught his eye was a missive from Lady Monteagle.  Cadurcis seized it like a wild animal darting on its prey, tore it in half without opening it, and, grasping the poker, crammed it with great energy into the fire.  This exploit being achieved, Cadurcis began walking up and down the room; and indeed he paced it for nearly a couple of hours in a deep reverie, and evidently under a considerable degree of excitement, for his gestures were violent, and his voice often audible.  At length, about an hour after midnight, he rang for his valet, tore off his cravat, and hurled it to one corner of the apartment, called for his robe de chambre, soda water, and more lights, seated himself, and began pouring forth, faster almost than his pen could trace the words, the poem that he had been meditating ever since he had quitted the roof where he had met Venetia.  She had expressed a wish to read his poems; he had resolved instantly to compose one for her solitary perusal Thus he relieved his heart: 

  I.

  Within a cloistered pile, whose Gothic towers
  Rose by the margin of a sedgy lake,
  Embosomed in a valley of green bowers,
  And girt by many a grove and ferny brake
  Loved by the antlered deer, a tender youth
  Whom Time to childhood’s gentle sway of love
  Still spared; yet innocent as is the dove,
  Nor mounded yet by Care’s relentless tooth;
  Stood musing, of that fair antique domain
  The orphan lord!  And yet, no childish thought
  With wayward purpose holds its transient reign
  In his young mind, with deeper feelings fraught;
  Then mystery all to him, and yet a dream,
  That Time has touched with its revealing beam.