It was a subject on which neither chose to speak, for it was a point of delicacy to both.

Had Lady Gertrude been excluded from her brother's confidence, she too might have spoken as carelessly and admiringly of him as his sisters constantly did; but she could not so address the girl who had rejected him, it would be pleading his cause, from which she revolted with a repugnance natural to her high-minded character.
"If he still love her, as his letters would betray, let him come and plead his own cause; never will I say anything that can make Caroline believe I am in secret negotiating for him." Such was the thought that ever checked her, when about to speak of him in the common course of conversation, and baffled all Caroline's secret wishes that she would speak in his praise as her sisters and Lord Louis so constantly did.
But even as delicacy prevented all allusion to him from the lips of Lady Gertrude, so it actuated Caroline with perhaps even greater force.

Would she betray herself, and confess that she repented her rejection of St.
Eval?
would she by word or deed betray that, would he return to her, she would be his own, and feel blessed in his affections?
She shrunk almost in horror from doing so, and roused her every energy to conceal and subdue every emotion, till she could hear his name with composure.

Yet more than once had Lady Gertrude, as she silently watched her countenance, fancied she perceived sufficient evidence to bid her wonder what could have induced Caroline's past conduct, to imagine that if St.
Eval could forget that, he might be happy yet; and for his sake, conquering her scruples, once she spoke openly of him, when she and Caroline were visiting some poor cottagers alone.

She spoke of his character, many points of which, though she admired, she regretted, as rendering him less susceptible of happiness than many who were less gifted.