"Or at least to his future title and estates! My dear friend, one would suppose you had swallowed a whole circulating library this morning! Are you a believer in broken hearts? My good Marion, they were exploded long ago, like ghosts and witchcraft! Nobody now dies of love except on the stage. You do not actually suppose Agnes will expire with the disappointment! She knows better. Why, Marion, you must expect to go through half-a-dozen such affairs before you get safe into the harbor of matrimony."
"I hope not! My heart would not stand quite so much breakage," replied Marion, coloring and laughing, while she added, in a lower tone, "besides which it is already in very safe keeping. I have given it away, you know, Patrick, once for all."
"Pshaw! Marion, none of your sentimental vagaries! Your attachment is, of course, to be a chef d'œuvre d'amour; but nothing lasts for ever now. If there were no disappointments in such a love-in-a-cottage affair as yours, what would become of poets and novel readers! Agnes understands the game of life better than you do. In her estimation, it is like a rubber at whist, where hearts are trumps, and the prize a good establishment in common with the first partner who offers. De Crespigny knows all this, and cannot be expected to place any great value on a second-hand heart, much the worse for wear. The intimacy between them has chiefly arisen from our relationship, he being her cousin only once removed."
"I wish he were removed altogether. Captain De Crespigny ought to suffer all the bitterness of disappointment himself, when his insatiable vanity inflicts it so heartlessly on others."
"Suppose you take that method of revenging Agnes," replied Sir Patrick, with a penetrating look. "He is the best catch going, and very civil to you. De Crespigny's attentions are an honor to any one, and would be quite a feather in your cap."
"So he seems to think; but I have no desire for such feathers. I make it a rule," said Marion, archly, "never to refuse any gentleman till he has proposed; but the honor of making him miserable for life never can be mine, though he so well deserves it. I suppose, being a Roman Catholic, he has bought an indulgence for deceit, or I should rather say falsehood."
"What old-fashioned bread-and-butter ideas you have, Marion! Everybody has been ill-used by somebody, and nobody minds it now. Agnes will continue incurably heart-broken, til some new lover pays his devoirs, and then you will understand her better, Marion. On garde long temps son premier amant quand on n'en pas un second."
"I judge of her by myself; and if once so cruelly deceived as she is, Patrick, my heart could never venture on any second attachment—never! Once awakened from such a dream, I neither could nor would attempt to dream it over again. My ideas of mutual attachment are not borrowed from novels or poems, because I never had time to read one at Mrs. Penfold's, but from conceiving what it might be to have a companion for life, from whom no thought should be concealed, and all my happiness derived. Who could ever place such trust in Captain De Crespigny, if he has really, as I may say, swindled Agnes out of her time, thoughts, and affections, without intending amply to repay them with his own? I am rapidly disliking him, Patrick; and the longer we talk, the more anxious I become for your leave to be out of his way entirely. Depend upon it, I shall be excessively rude to your friend the next time we meet. So, pray, let me go to-morrow."
Hearing a slight noise, Marion looked round, and she would have felt it rather a relief at the moment if the floor could have opened under her feet, when, with a gasp of consternation, she beheld Captain De Crespigny standing in an attitude of perplexity and irresolution near the door, evidently, for once in his life, feeling almost awkward, and very nearly abashed, though a moment afterwards he regained his usual matchless intrepidity of countenance and manner; when Sir Patrick advanced, with extended hand, to welcome him, saying,
"Ah! De Crespigny! is that you?"