“Perhaps so, in one sense.  I have just sufficient tinge of it about me to teach me that whatever are my thoughts and opinions, if they differ much from other people’s, I must keep them to myself, unless, as is the case now, I meet a congenial soul.”

A view of the subject which was quite new to Basil.

“I thought originality was a sign of genius,” he replied, “and that people admired it.”

She smiled with an air of superiority that left him miles behind.

“My observation teaches me that there is nothing worldly people disapprove of so highly as originality,” she said.  “To be more clever than your neighbor is a crime they never pardon.”

Basil, drinking in the beauty of that marvelous face, and the light of those lovely eyes, learned more worldly wisdom in one hour from the lovely lips of Lady Amelie than he had ever learned before.

CHAPTER XI.

How the Plot Succeeded.

Colonel Mostyn had no longer any reason to complain of his young kinsman; it was a month since he had been introduced to Lady Amelie, and he had lived in one long dream.  He no longer found the time wearisome, or longed for something to do.  He was in the power of a beautiful and heartless coquette, who took care that he should not lightly wear her chains.

He no longer showed any indifference to his evening engagements; to be with her was the one wish of his life; where she went, he went—­to ball, opera, soiree, concert, fete, to dinners at Richmond, to water-parties; whoever saw the beautiful Lady Amelie, saw her last victim with her.

Colonel Mostyn began to think that really matters had been carried quite far enough; all the good he had anticipated was done; he did not wish evil to follow, and he was beginning to scheme for his young kinsman’s rescue, when he was suddenly summoned to join his regiment, just ordered abroad, and Basil was left to his fate.

He gave him some parting words of advice, but they fell on deaf ears.  Even had Basil quite understood them, he would have asked how was it possible for a matter-of-fact, prosaic soldier like Colonel Mostyn, a man of the world, to understand such transcendental beings as Lady Amelie and himself.

During the whole of this time, believe me, he had no thought of harm or wrong; he never dreamed of being in love with Lady Amelie.  What was she to him?  His queen, his lode-star, his inspiration to all that was great and glorious, the Lama to his Petrarch; but of anything less exalted, he had no notion.  Basil Carruthers, with all his eccentricity, would have shuddered at the bare notion of dishonorable love or sin.  He was an enthusiast, a dreamer, a poet in heart and soul, but he was not the man to betray a woman; he scorned the notion of such a sin; it was utterly beneath his lofty nature.  How skilfully she managed him!  How artfully she contrived to lead him on, to engage his whole thought, time and attention, yet never to lose her influence for one moment!