Part 60 (1/2)
I said: ”You have a way with men. None is insensible to your youth and beauty.”
”Is it so?” she asked innocently.
”Are you not aware of it?”
”I had thought that I pleased.”
”You do so. Best tread discreetly. Best consider carefully now. Then choose one and dismiss the rest.”
”Choose?”
”Aye.”
”Whom should I choose, John Drogue?”
”Why,” said I, losing countenance, ”there is the same ardent rabble like that plague of suitors which importuned the Greek Penelope. There are the sap-pan flies all buzzing.”
”Oh. Should I make a choice if entreated?”
”A burgesse is free to choose.”
”Oh. And to which suitor should I give my smile?”
”Well,” said I, sullenly, ”there is Nick. There also is your Cornet of Horse--young Jack-boots. And there is the young gentleman whose picture you wear in your bosom.”
”Captain Watts?” she asked, so navely that jealousy stabbed me instantly, so that my smile became a grimace.
”Sure,” said I, ”you think tenderly on Stephen Watts.”
”Yes.”
”In fact,” I almost groaned, ”you entertain for him those virtuous sentiments not unbecoming to the maiden of his choice.... Do you not, Penelope?”
”He has courted me a year. I find him agreeable. Also, I pity him--although his impatience causes me concern and his ardour inconveniences me.... The sentiments I entertain for him are virtuous, as you say, sir. And so are my sentiments for any man.”
”But is not your heart engaged in this affair?”
”With Captain Watts?”
”Yes.”
”Oh, I thought you meant with you, sir.”
I affected to smile, but my heart thumped my ribs.
”I have not pretended to your heart, Penelope.”
”No, sir. Nor I to yours. And, for the matter, know nothing concerning hearts and the deeper pretensions to secret pa.s.sions of which one hears so much in gossip and romance. No, sir; I am ignorant. Yet, I have thought that kindness might please a woman more easily than sighs and vapours.... Or so it seems to me.... And that impatient ardour only perplexes.... And pa.s.sion often chills the natural pity that a woman entertains for any man who vows he is unhappy and must presently perish of her indifference....
”Yet I am not indifferent to men.... And have used men gently.... And forgiven them.... Being not hard but pitiful by disposition.”