“But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me, and with a generosity of which no coquette could have been capable) you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you told me with your charming smile, ‘Let no one speak to me of love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant,’—since thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite amongst these grands seigneurs I have named only serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more than beauty and wit,—namely, connections to strengthen their political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title.”
“My dear Mr. Leslie,” replied the marchesa,—and a certain sadness might be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye,—“I have lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he talks of his heart. Ah,” continued Beatrice, with a softness of which she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie’s,—“ah, I am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures,—of a heart so new, that it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home, I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition.”
“This language does not surprise me,” said Randal; “yet it does not harmonize with your former answer to me.”
“To you,” repeated Beatrice, smiling, and regaining her lighter manner; “to you,—true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And then, too,” said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in her air,—“and then, I could not have consented to share my fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now, it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing.”
“Ah,” said Randal, interested, and drawing still closer towards his fair companion,—“ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to think that you shall be—rich?”
The marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While thus reflecting, Beatrice answered,
“Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be half a million—”
“Half a million!” cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself from falling at her feet in adoration. “Of francs!” continued the marchesa.
“Francs! Ah,” said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from his sudden enthusiasm, “about L20,000? eight hundred a year at four per cent. A very handsome portion, certainly (Genteel poverty!” he murmured to himself. “What an escape I have had! but I see—I see. This will smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. I see),—a very handsome portion,” he repeated aloud,—“not for a grand seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your ideal. Proverbially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our rural nobility, our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?”
“Did I blush?” said the marchesa, with a silvery laugh. “Nay, I think that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I have been touched by his honest ingenuous love,—so evident, yet rather looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honours me with the suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not what—”