“What a fool I would have made of myself,” soliloquized Major Gordon, angrily, “if I had told her, five minutes ago, I loved her, as I was tempted to do. She is evidently plighted to this cousin, for in no other way can his cool assumption of authority over her be explained; and she has been only amusing herself with me; her look I misinterpreted, or, which is probably truer, she is the most arrant of coquettes.” An angry lover is rarely just or logical. “Why did I not see whither I was being led? Yes; if she had not been trifling with me, she would have mentioned her cousin at some time or another,” he continued, getting more enraged, “but it was necessary to her success to keep me ignorant of him, and so his name was studiously avoided. All she seems to think of now is the possibility of a collision between us, for he has probably returned sooner than she expected; and she dreads his haughty insolence. Well, my pretty lady, it would give me a pleasure, if the gentleman and I were alone, to make him taste my sword.”
In this way he rode on, sullen and apart, till they reached the gate of Sweetwater, where courtesy compelled him to approach to make his adieus.
“Won’t you come in?” said Kate, in her old, frank way, though in a lower, perhaps softer tone than usual.
In an instant he forgot his indignation. But recollecting that he could not be mistaken, and saying to himself that this was only another of her wiles, he answered, coldly—
“No, I thank you,” and, replacing his hat ceremoniously, he rode stiffly on, internally cursing the whole sex, from Kate back to mother Eve, as irritated lovers will.
CHAPTER XVII.
JEALOUSY
I care not for her, I. —Shakespeare.
It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To be revenged on him that loveth thee. —Shakespeare.
The instant Major Gordon was out of sight of Sweetwater, and had plunged into the forest that lay between it and his quarters, he gave vent to the angry emotions that had raged, like a suppressed volcano, in his bosom.
His first ebullition was directed against Aylesford. The insolent tone of the cousin, in recalling, galled him to the quick; and his hand instinctively sought the hilt of his sword, when he remembered that supercilious and confident look. A savage, almost murderous feeling took possession of him. He muttered between his teeth. “If I had him alone, here in the forest, with a clearing of but a dozen yards or so, he should answer for his conduct with his life.”