"George, you should be more of a man," I said, with asperity, "than to yield in this way to every impulse that besets you. Your whims are hard to bear with lately, and scarcely worth understanding, I am convinced."
"Would I were more or less of a man!" he answered, meekly. "I should suffer less, probably."
"Tell me what does ail you, George Gaston," I added, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, caused by his patient, deprecating manner. "You know you always have my warmest sympathy, and affection—sisterly interest."
"Ah, Miriam, it is that! You love that man; yes, you love him a thousand-fold more than you have ever loved me. I suspected it before—I know it now; and I would rather see you floating a corpse on the river, with your dead face turned up to heaven, than married to that man, I hate him so!"
The last words were ground between his set teeth, and he trembled with passion.
"George," I said, "you are still a child in years, in strength, in stature! I, but a few months older, am already a woman in age, experience, feeling, character. It is always thus with persons of our sexes who contract childish friendships—one outgrows the other. Then there are bitterness, reproach, suffering, resentment, on one part or the other. But is this just? Remember Byron and Miss Chaworth—how was it with them? He grasped too much, and lost every thing; he embittered his whole nature, his whole life, for the want of common-sense to guide him; but, with almost as much genius—more, in some things, than he possessed—you HAVE this governing principle. I know my dearest George will do me justice. I shall be an old, faded woman when you are of an age to marry—unlovely in your eyes, George,"—I hesitated. "I have always hoped you would be our Mabel's husband. You know you have promised me." I smiled tearfully this time.
He bounded off the bench, interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes, wildly-beloved Miriam, the noblest, truest, as I have ever thought you—the most beautiful, too, surely, of all God's created beings!" and he caught my hand wildly.
"George, you are dreaming," I said; "your vivid fancy misleads you utterly. I am not beautiful—you cannot think so; no one has ever thought me so; you must not say such an absurd thing of me. It only humiliates me. But I do believe I still deserve your esteem. Let us separate now, and to-morrow come to me in a better mood."
"If I must give you up," he murmured, in a low, grieved voice, "let it be to a husband who loves and appreciates you—is worthy of you. I cannot tell you all I know—have heard; but of this I am certain: Claude Bainrothe loves you not! It is Evelyn he worships, and you are blind not to see it; Evelyn who has goaded him almost to madness already for her own purposes. I heard—but no, I cannot tell you this; I ought not—honor forbids;" and he laid his hand on his boyish breast, in a tragic, lofty manner, all his own, that almost made me smile.
"I know, I know all this, dear George," I said. "Claude Bainrothe addressed Evelyn before he knew me, and she refused him. Nor have I craved the honor, this is all that can be said as yet, of being her successor." I faltered here. "Let this satisfy you for the present. He has not spoken to me."