"Then you have not forgotten your promise!"
"Forgotten!"
"And you really will take charge of me?" said Belle-bouche, with a delightful expression of doubt.
"Take charge of you?" cried Jacques, overwhelmed and drowned in love; "take charge of you! Oh Belle-bouche! dearest Belle-bouche!--you are killing me! Oh! let me take charge of your life--see Corydon here at your feet, the fondest, most devoted----"
"Becca! will you never hear me?" cried the voice of Aunt Wimple; "here I am toiling after you till I am out of breath--for Heaven"s sake, stop!"
And smiling, red in the face, panting Aunt Wimple drew near and bowed pleasantly to Jacques, who only groaned, and murmured:
"One more chance gone--ah!"
As for Belle-bouche, she was blushing like a rose. She uttered not one word until they reached the house. Then she said, turning round with a smile and a blush:
"Indeed, you must excuse me!"
Poor Jacques sighed. He saw her leave him, taking away the light and joy of his existence. He slowly went away; and all the way back to town he felt as if he was not a real man on horseback, rather a dream mounted upon a cloud, and both asleep. Poor Jacques!
CHAPTER XVIII.
GOING TO ROSELAND.
As the unfortunate lover entered Williamsburg, his hands hanging down, his eyes dreamy and fixed with hostile intentness on vacancy, his shoulders drooping and swaying from side to side like those of a drunken man,--he saw pa.s.s before him, rattling and joyous, a brilliant equipage, which, like a sleigh covered with bells, seemed to leave in its wake a long jocund peal of merriment and laughter.
In this vehicle, which mortals were then accustomed to call, and indeed call still, a curricle, sat two young men who were conversing; and as the melancholy Jacques pa.s.sed on his way, the younger student--for such he was--said, laughing, to his companion:
"Look, Ernest, there is a man in love!"
Mowbray raised his head, and seeing Jacques, smiled sadly and thoughtfully; then his breast moved, and a profound sigh issued from his lips: he made no reply.
"Why!" cried Hoffland, "you have just been guilty, Ernest, of a ceremony which none but a woman should perform. What a sigh!"
Mowbray turned away his head.
"I was only thinking," he said calmly.
"Thinking of what?"
"Nothing."
"I see that you think one thing," said Hoffland, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye; "to wit, that I am very prying."
"No; but my thoughts would not interest you, Charles," said Mowbray.
And a sigh still more profound agitated his lips and breast.
"Suppose you try me," his companion said; "speaking generally, your thoughts do interest me."
"Well, I was thinking of a woman," said Mowbray.
"A woman! Oh! then your time, in your own opinion at least, was thrown away."
"Worse," said Mowbray gloomily; "worse by far."
"How?"
"It is useless, Charles, to touch upon the subject; let it rest."
"No; I wish you to tell me, if I am not intrusive, what woman you were at the moment honoring with a sigh."
Mowbray raised his head calmly, and yielding like all lovers to the temptation to pour into the bosom of his friend those troubled thoughts which oppressed his heart, said to his companion:
"The woman we were speaking of the other day."
"You have not told me her name," said Hoffland.
"It is useless."
"Why?"
"Because she is lost to me."
"Lost?"
"For ever."
And after this gloomy reply, Mowbray looked away.
Hoffland placed a hand upon his arm, and said:
"Upon what grounds do you base your opinion that she is lost to you?"
"It is not an opinion; I know it too well."
"If you were mistaken?"
"Mistaken!" said Mowbray; "mistaken! You think I am mistaken? Then you know nothing of what took place at our last interview; or you did not listen rather--for if my memory does not deceive me, I told you all."
"I did listen."
"And you now doubt that she is lost to me?"
"Seriously."