“I should like to live with you, sir.” Maltravers started, and half smiled, and coloured. But looking on her eyes, which were fixed earnestly on his, there was so much artlessness in their soft, unconscious gaze, that he saw she was wholly ignorant of the interpretation that might be put upon so candid a confession.
I have said that Maltravers was a wild, enthusiastic, odd being—he was, in fact, full of strange German romance and metaphysical speculations. He had once shut himself up for months to study astrology—and been even suspected of a serious hunt after the philosopher’s stone; another time he had narrowly escaped with life and liberty from a frantic conspiracy of the young republicans of his university, in which, being bolder and madder than most of them, he had been an active ringleader; it was, indeed, some such folly that had compelled him to quit Germany sooner than himself or his parents desired. He had nothing of the sober Englishman about him. Whatever was strange and eccentric had an irresistible charm for Ernest Maltravers. And agreeably to this disposition, he now revolved an idea that enchanted his mobile and fantastic philosophy. He himself would educate this charming girl—he would write fair and heavenly characters upon this blank page—he would act the Saint Preux to this Julie of Nature. Alas, he did not think of the result which the parallel should have suggested. At that age, Ernest Maltravers never damped the ardour of an experiment by the anticipation of consequences.
“So,” he said, after a short reverie, “so you would like to live with me? But, Alice, we must not fall in love with each other.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“Never mind,” said Maltravers, a little disconcerted.
“I always wished to go into service.”
“Ha!”
“And you would be a kind master.”
Maltravers was half disenchanted.
“No very flattering preference,” thought he: “so much the safer for us. Well, Alice, it shall be as you wish. Are you comfortable where you are, in your new lodgings?”