We lived in a round of visits for some time after our return home, giving
splendid dinner-parties, and making a sensation in our neighbourhood by
the new lustre of our equipage, for my father had reserved this display
of his increased wealth for the period of his son's marriage; and we gave
our acquaintances liberal opportunity for remarking that it was a pity I
made so poor a figure as an heir and a bridegroom. The nervous fatigue
of this existence, the insincerities and platitudes which I had to live
through twice over--through my inner and outward sense--would have been
maddening to me, if I had not had that sort of intoxicated callousness
which came from the delights of a first passion. A bride and bridegroom,
surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, hurried through the day by
the whirl of society, filling their solitary moments with
hastily-snatched caresses, are prepared for their future life together as
the novice is prepared for the cloister--by experiencing its utmost
contrast.

Through all these crowded excited months, Bertha's inward self remained
shrouded from me, and I still read her thoughts only through the language
of her lips and demeanour: I had still the human interest of wondering
whether what I did and said pleased her, of longing to hear a word of
affection, of giving a delicious exaggeration of meaning to her smile.
But I was conscious of a growing difference in her manner towards me;
sometimes strong enough to be called haughty coldness, cutting and
chilling me as the hail had done that came across the sunshine on our
marriage morning; sometimes only perceptible in the dexterous avoidance
of a _tete-a-tete_ walk or dinner to which I had been looking forward. I
had been deeply pained by this--had even felt a sort of crushing of the
heart, from the sense that my brief day of happiness was near its
setting; but still I remained dependent on Bertha, eager for the last
rays of a bliss that would soon be gone for ever, hoping and watching for