Then he laughed. Oh! I could not bear the sound of that laugh: there was naught but Bitterness in it. And he said slowly muttering between his Teeth:
"The Philosopher alone knows that Women are like Melons: it is only after having tasted them that one knows if they are good."
Of course, he said a great deal more during the course of that dreary, restless hour, which seemed to me like a Slice out of Eternity. His Restlessness was intense. Every now and then he would jump up and walk up and down, up and down, until his every Footstep had its counterpart in the violent beatings of my Heart. Then he would fling himself into a Chair and rest his Head against the Cushions, closing his Eyes as if he were in bodily Pain, or else beat his Forehead with his Fists.
Of course he thought himself unobserved, for Mr. Betterton is, as You know, a Man of great mental Reserve. Not even before me—his faithful and devoted Friend—would he wittingly have displayed such overmastering Emotion. To say that an equally overwhelming Sorrow filled my Heart would be but to give You, dear Mistress, a feeble Statement of what I really felt. To see a Man of Mr. Betterton's mental and physical Powers so utterly crushed by an insane Passion was indeed heartrending. Had he not everything at his Feet that any Man could wish for?—Fame, Honours, the Respect and Admiration of all those who mattered in the World. Women adored him, Men vied with one another to render him the sincerest Flattery by striving to imitate his Gestures, his Mode of Speech, the very Cut of his Clothes. And, above all—aye, I dare assert it, and You, beloved Mistress will, I know, forgive me—above all, he had the Love of a pure and good Woman, of a talented Artist—yours, dear Lady—an inestimable Boon, for which many a Man would thank his Maker on his Knees.
Ah! he was blind then, had been blind since that fatal Hour when the Lady Barbara Wychwoode crossed his Path. I could endorse the wild Words which he had spoken to her this forenoon. A thousand devils were indeed unchained within him; but 'tis not to her Kiss that they would yield, but rather to the gentle Ministration of exquisite Mistress Saunderson.
CHAPTER XV
MORE DEAF THAN ADDERS
1
I felt so cramped and numb in my narrow hiding-place that I verily believe I must have fallen into a kind of trance-like Slumber.
From this I was suddenly awakened by the loud Clang of our front-door Bell, followed immediately by the Footsteps of the Serving Man upon the Landing, and then by a brief Colloquy between him and the belated Visitor.