"Humility is not certainly your cardinal virtue," said Agnes, with a look of angry scorn, which few could have withstood. "You cultivate an extensive acquaintance."
"Very! I must really see whether people can be induced to cut me, for it is exceedingly troublesome. I know sixty-four families with three young ladies in each. It would puzzle the calculating machine to make out how many that amounts to. But, meantime, I must unwillingly say the most hateful of all words—farewell. I have been putting off time here, expecting Dunbar for the last half hour, though little able to afford so many minutes. My idiot of a watch must surely be too slow, or your brother would have been back about the sale of mad Tom. I have twenty minds to buy him, if Dunbar did not ask so very long a price."
"You are intending, I believe," asked Agnes, "to enter him for the—the Chiltern Hundreds?"
"Not exactly! but the Doncaster St. Leger. He would be the first horse in that line, though asses are perfectly accustomed to them. Good morning! au revoir! I mean to Londonize for a few weeks, then go to Paris, and afterwards disperse myself over every corner of the uncivilized globe. Can I do anything for you anywhere? Geneva velvets? Parisian bonnets? Swiss muslins? I am at your service in every quarter of the world. May I beg my very best regards to your sister."
So saying, Captain De Crespigny bowed himself out of the room, with very much the air of a popular actor who expects three rounds of applause, and Agnes having, with a face as unmoved as if it had been enamelled, coldly given him her hand, with an ill-supported smile on her quivering lip, wished him a pleasant journey, and turned almost haughtily away; a bolt of ice seemed to have fallen upon her heart, and in that small moment was comprised the agony of ages; but the greatest wonder in nature is the entire self-command given to many, and especially to women, by means of which they can hear what involves the happiness of a life-time, and yet betray no visible emotion.
The strongest feelings on earth never are discovered. Feeble minds can conceal nothing, but those who have strength of mind to suffer most deeply, are those who have strength of mind also to hide what they do endure. On slight occasions, Agnes was a most accomplished fainter; but now, having stood, with a specious smile on her countenance, till the door had finally closed, she rushed to the privacy of her own room, and closed the door, then seating herself, in all the luxury of solitude, she meditated with silent astonishment on all that had passed.
No coroner's inquest can be summoned on a deceased flirtation, and whether it die a natural death or a violent one never can be known, as it may be caused merely by some trifling oversight, perhaps by the cruel aspersion of an enemy, or simply by whim and caprice, as in this case seemed the most probable, and to Agnes the most mortifying. Wounded in all her most sensitive feelings, a crowd of angry and depressing thoughts crowded into her brain, while she could not but feel that the arrows which had struck her were most cruelly barbed and most skilfully aimed. It was harrowing to her vain, proud spirit, to imagine that Captain De Crespigny could really be indifferent. It seemed, indeed, almost impossible! Could his carelessness be all assumed! Had he, indeed, an honorable scruple of engaging her upon the uncertainty of his uncle's demise. It might be so. Agnes felt that entire despondency would come soon enough, if come it must; and anxious to believe in Captain De Crespigny's attachment, she seemed now resolved to keep up the farce with herself a little longer. She felt certain that he had cast back a look of regret on leaving the room, which spoke volumes, and these volumes she filled up according to her own imagination. The parting had, perhaps, been as painful to Captain De Crespigny as to herself, but what could he do if Lord Doncaster always continued to be the "undying one," standing in the way of their mutual happiness. Agnes now lived over every scene which had passed between herself and her supposed lover. She could not imagine those feelings expressed to any other which seemed created by herself alone. She recapitulated all his civilities to herself, remembered how his last sigh had been sighed, how his last look had been looked; and, after a glance at the mirror, which proved as usual an effectual safety-valve to any feelings of mortification, she became at last restored to the agreeable conviction, that the most considerate, self-denying, and constant of lovers was Captain De Crespigny.
"And," exclaimed Agnes, with another triumphant glance at the mirror, "as he said only yesterday, 'on peut fuir sans oublier.' Let him admire any other if he can!"
I'll still believe that story wrong,
Which ought not to be true.