Part 40 (2/2)
”Yes. It is a long way!”
”All the better!”
A gentle pressure of her round arm rewarded Oswald for the compliment.
They had reached the town gate, walking rapidly but saying little to each other. As soon as they were outside the town they began to walk more slowly, as if by concert. Oswald felt that the young beauty who hung on his arm was in his power--that it depended on him to make her happy--in her sense of the word, at least. The virtuous impulse which he had felt just now, and which had been produced partly by the pride of self-respect, had long since pa.s.sed away. Emily's coquettish charms, whose power he had already once felt overwhelming in the window-niche at Barnewitz, had not failed to have their effect upon his wavering but extremely susceptible nature; and if he even thought at that moment of the greater beauty of Helen, and of what he called his true love, for which he had sacrificed so much--alas! so much!--this served after all only to make the sweetness of a stolen and half-forbidden pa.s.sion all the more intoxicating.
”Are you still angry, Emily?” he said, with the most insinuating tone of his sweet, deep voice.
”I--and angry?” replied Emily, and she came up closer and closer to her companion; ”can we be angry where we would love, love always, love inexpressibly, and----”
”And what, sweetest?”
”Perhaps be loved a little in return!”
The words sounded so childlike, good, and true, that Oswald could not understand how he had ever been able to reject the love of this most charming creature.
”And yet,” he said, ”you were once angry with me; and you had cause! I swear it by that heaven which was then looking down upon us with its golden stars! How shall I make amends, oh sweet one! for what--oh! I cannot bear to think of that night at the ball at Grenwitz!”
”Really!” replied Emily, merrily; ”oh, then it is all right again. Then I will not be sorry for anything that has happened since.”
”For what has happened since! _What_ has happened?”
”How can you ask? Am I not Baroness Cloten? And why am I that? Only because you would none of my love! Oh, Oswald, I cannot tell you what a tumult there was in my heart that night after I had left you. My heart was breaking; I could have cried aloud; I could have thrown myself down on the ground; I could have died. And yet I sent Cloten to my aunt to ask her for my hand. How could I do it? You do not know women, if you ask that. Cloten, or any one; I did not care who, at that moment I had only the one thought--to be avenged on you by making myself as wretched as I possibly could, so that you should have my unhappiness on your conscience, and I might be able to say to you one of these days: You would have it so.”
”This 'one of these days' has come sooner than you probably expected. I would cheerfully give many years of my life--I would willingly die on the spot--if I could by so doing make you free again; as free as you were when we met for the first time at Barnewitz.”
”What could I do with my freedom if I were to lose you?” replied Emily, tenderly and teasingly. ”No, no, Oswald; ten thousand times rather just as it is now. If you will love me a little----”
”Can you doubt it?”
”Perhaps--but never mind; only a little, and I am satisfied. I can bear being called Baroness Cloten; I can bear your loving another----”
”Another!”
”Yes, sir, another; who certainly is very beautiful, but as proud as beautiful; and who, you may rest a.s.sured, would not hesitate to sacrifice her love to her pride, if she can ever love really, which I doubt. Oh, Oswald, I wish you had seen her last night! I know people call me coquettish, and I may be so when I have a chance of making a fool of a man; but then I do it merrily, and not by casting down my eyes prudishly, as Helen does. I can tell you I was angry with her last night for your sake. I thought: there is the poor man dying for love for you; and here are you, the lady of his heart, and you allow yourself to be courted to your heart's content, and by whom? By the essence of all foolish conceit that was ever put into a handsome uniform; by the king of all ball-heroes in varnished boots and well-fitting kid-gloves; by the fas.h.i.+on-model of our young dandies, who try in vain to imitate him in the way he holds his head and snarls out his _Non Ma'am, oui Ma'moiselle!_”
”And who is this hero?” asked Oswald, laughing, in a way which did not sound quite natural.
”A Prince Waldenberg--Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus.”
”Is he not a dark-haired man, as long as his name, with a face like a melancholy bulldog?”
”That's the man. Handsome, he is not; witty, he is not; good, he is probably also not exactly; but what does it matter? The prospect of becoming Princess Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus, and to be the owner of a few hundred thousand souls--the prince is a Russian--covers the heartlessness of the future husband with a pleasant veil, and one can gracefully drop the dark silken lashes and smile.”
While Emily was thus acting upon the principle that in war and in love all means are fair, and invoked the demon of jealousy to come to her aid, they had come quite near to Miss Bear's house, as their way lay in that direction. Emily paused and started, for suddenly a gigantic figure, wrapped in a large cloak, detached itself from the dark shadow of the poplar-trees at the garden-gate, where it had probably been standing for some time, and pa.s.sed them slowly.
”_Quand on parle du loup_,” said Emily; ”if it had been less dark we would have had an interesting encounter.”
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