224

THE MAGIC CRYSTAL J OR,

eyes after that terrible struggle with a watery death, from whichyou saved me at Como, they rested on quite another man.Your face was lively then, your manner jovial—only, perhaps,at times, a trifle abstracted: now, since we came to town,you look twenty years older, and utter sentiments so asceticand blase , as show you to be a perfect stranger to the joy I feelin this gay scene.”

“Dear Jocelyn!” exclaimed the other, with a sad smile,“ you know there are ‘ some who become old in their youth/ and,perhaps,” he added after a pause, “ ‘ die ere middle age/ I amgrowing more reflective, and, consequently, more sad. Bearwith me ; my pictures teach me-”

“ Let us hear their doctrine another time; canvass com-mentators upon life are very well in galleries, but they are anaffront to such living expositors of light and loveliness as wesee here. Look ! the ballet is about to commence; Lady Riversis quitting her box — she, whose immaculate decorum has ob-tained the sobriquet of the c Agna Casta ! ’ Can anything bemore charming than the pure innocence of that expression?”A lady bowed as she passed, leaning on the arm of a handsomeand fashionably - dressed man. “ What a subject for youthere ! ”

De Grey shuddered. “I have such strange thoughts!”he said, turning away.

“ My dear fellow ! what incomprehensible humour possessesyou ?”

“ I behold nothing with pleasure: yet it is no fault ofmine. I gaze into the future and-”

“ Heaven forbid that either of us should do so. To whatpurpose, in either case ? the knowledge is at least unpalatable,if not destructive. The seer must either be a man who, pre-dicting evil, is uncredited like Cassandra, or, with all his boastedpower, like Tiresias is blind to escape it.”