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Before Amena's recovery the Count hastens away to welcome his brother, and when the imprudent girl has been safely lodged in a convent, D'Elmont, moved more by ambition than by love, weds the languishing Alovisa.
Victor over a thousand hearts, the Haywoodian male ranges through his glittering sphere, ever ready to fall in or out of love as the occasion demands. D'Elmont of "Love in Excess" possesses a soul large enough to contain both love and fury at almost the same moment. A "brulée" with his spouse merely increases his tenderness for his ward.
When the polite Count returns to enquire after her health, she accuses her lover and friend of duplicity, faints, and letting fall Alovisa's letter from her bosom, brings about an éclaircissement between D'Elmont and that lady.
To expose her rival she pretends to yield to the persuasions of her wooer, the Baron D'Espernay, but as a result of a very intricate intrigue both Alovisa and the Baron perish accidentally on the swords of D'Elmont and his brother.
It fills the whole Air of the Person possess'd of it; it wanders round the Mouth! plays in the Voice! trembles in the Accent! and shows itself a thousand different ways! even Melliora's care to hide it, made it more apparent; and the transported D'Elmont, not considering where he was, or who might be a witness of his Rapture, could not forbear catching her in his Arms, and grasping her with an extasy, which plainly told her what his thoughts were, tho' at that time he had not power to put 'em into words; and indeed there is no greater Proof of a vast and elegant Passion, than the being uncapable of expressing it."
It would be useless to detail the sensational extravagances of the plot in all its ramifications, but the hero's adventures before and after marriage may serve as a fair sample of the whole. D'Elmont, returning to Paris from the French wars, becomes the admiration of both sexes, but especially in the eyes of the rich and noble Alovisa appears a conquest worthy of her powers.
Half senseless with dismay, Amena finds shelter in the house of Alovisa, who, though inwardly triumphant, receives her rival civilly and promises to reconcile her to her father. D'Elmont is so patently glad to be relieved of his fair charge that she demands back her letter, but he by mistake gives her one of Alovisa's, whose handwriting she immediately recognizes.
The story in all its intricacies may best be described as the vie amoureuse of Count D'Elmont, a hero with none of the wit, but with all the gallantry of the rakes of late Restoration comedy. Two parts of the novel relate the aristocratic intrigues of D'Elmont and his friends; the third shows him, like Mrs. Centlivre's gallants in the fifth act, reformed and a model of constancy.
A contemporary admirer remarked, with justice: 'Tis Love Eliza's soft Affections fires; Eliza writes, but Love alone inspires; 'Tis Love that gives D'Elmont his manly Charms, And tears Amena from her Father's Arms. These last-named persons are the hero and heroine of Love in Excess; or The Fatal Inquiry, which seems to have been the most popular of the whole series.
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