The wily Judge affected to receive the intimation with indifference; but knowing that too long an absence is injurious to a grande passion, he did not keep Mauleverer very late over his wine.
The Earl returned rapturously to the drawing-room, and besought Lucy, in a voice in which affectation seemed swooning with delight, to indulge him with a song. More and more enchanted by her assent, he drew the music-stool to the harpsichord, placed a chair beside her, and presently appeared lost in transport. Meanwhile Brandon, with his back to the pair, covered his face with his handkerchief, and, to all appearance, yielded to the voluptuousness of an after-dinner repose.
Lucy's song-book opened accidentally at a song which had been praised by Clifford; and as she sung, her voice took a richer and more tender tone than in Mauleverer's presence it had ever before assumed.
