her agitated features. It seemed to cost her a great effort to collect her scattered senses; the effort was made with pain, but with success.
"Forgive me," she said, in a hurried and indistinct tone; "forgive me! I would speak, but cannot, not now at least; we have been long away, too long; our absence will be remarked to-night; to-night we must give up to the gratification of others, but I will speak. For yours, for my own sake, let us, let us go. You know that we are to be very gay to-night, and gay we will be. Who shall prevent us? At least the present hour is our own; and when the future ones must be so sad, why, why, trifle with this?"





CHAPTER XI
The reader is not to suppose that Vivian Grey thought of the young Baroness merely in the rapid scenes which we have sketched. There were few moments in the day in which her image did not occupy his thoughts, and which, indeed, he did not spend in her presence. From the first her character had interested him. His accidental but extraordinary acquaintance with Beckendorff made him view any individual connected with that singular man with a far more curious feeling than could influence the young nobles of the Court, who were ignorant of the Minister's personal character. There was an evident mystery about the character and situation of the Baroness, which well accorded with the eccentric and romantic career of the Prime Minister of Reisenburg. Of the precise nature of her connection with Beckendorff Vivian was wholly ignorant. The world spoke of her as his daughter, and the affirmation of Madame Carolina confirmed the world's report. Her name was still unknown to him; and although during the few moments that they had enjoyed an opportunity of conversing together alone, Vivian had made every exertion of which good breeding, impelled by curiosity, is capable, and had devised many little artifices with which a schooled address is well acquainted to obtain it, his exertions had hitherto been unsuccessful. If there was a mystery, the young lady was competent to preserve it; and with all her naïveté, her interesting ignorance of the world, and her evidently uncontrollable spirit, no hasty word ever fell from her cautious lips which threw any light on the objects of his inquiry. Though impetuous, she was never indiscreet, and often displayed a caution which was little in accordance with her youth and temper. The last night had witnessed the only moment in which her passions seemed for a time to