So matters went on until the continued secrecy began to prey upon
Marion's mind; then she made an appeal to Allan with which our story
opens. He did his best to argue with her, and he sent a note to his
sister, telling her the bright, bonnie bird they had ensnared was
growing restive under constraint.
No doubts ever came to her. Youth is the age of romance; youth
imperatively demands love and poetry. She had found both and was
perfectly satisfied. She believed honestly that she loved him very
dearly; it never occurred to her that the greatest charm really was the
excitement of having to plan interviews and arrange her letters so as to
escape detection; it never occured to her that if she had been like
other girls of her age in society, and so enabled to judge of people, so
far from loving him and making a hero of him, he would have been
distasteful to her. She had had no opportunities of being able to judge.
Lord Ridsdale's only idea was to keep her at school as long as possible,
in order to escape further trouble. She had never been in the society of
gentlemen, and her head was full of romance and poetry.
Therefore she fell an easy victim to the artist and his sister. She was
ready to believe he was a great hero, because he was handsome; that he
was all that could be noble and generous, because he talked poetry.
True, she began to dislike the concealment, but it never struck her that
she disliked it because the whole affair was growing tiresome to her.
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