“Gracious Powers!” cried I, “she has not surely communicated my secret,—she has not told you who I am?”
“No, sir, I assure you most solemnly that she has not; but being annoyed by what she remarked as the freedom of my manner towards you at dinner, the readiness with which I replied to your remarks, and what she deemed the want of deference I displayed for them, she took me to task this evening, and, without intending it, even before she knew, dropped certain expressions which showed me that you were one of the very highest in rank, though it was your pleasure to travel for the moment in this obscurity and disguise.”
She quickly perceived the indiscretion she had committed, and said, “Now, Miss Herbert, that an accident has put you in possession of certain circumstances, which I had neither the will nor the right to reveal, will you do me the inestimable favor to employ this knowledge in such a way as may not compromise me?' I told her, of course, that I would; and having remarked how she occasionally—inadvertently, perhaps—used 'sir' in addressing you, I deemed the imitation a safe one, while it as constantly acted as a sort of monitor over myself to repress any relapse into familiarity.”
“I am very sorry for all this,” said I, taking her hand in mine, and employing my most insinuating of manners towards her. “As it is more than doubtful that I shall ever resume the station that once pertained to me; as, in fact, it may be my fortune to occupy for the rest of life an humble and lowly condition, my ambition would have been to draw towards me in that modest station such sympathies and affections as might attach to one so circumstanced. My plan was to assume an obscure name, seek out some unfrequented spot, and there, with the love of one—one only—solve the great problem, whether happiness is not as much the denizen of the thatched cottage as of the gilded palace. The first requirement of my scheme was that my secret should be in my own keeping. One can steel his own heart against vain regrets and longings; but one cannot secure himself against the influence of those sympathies which come from without, the unwise promptings of zealous followers, the hopes and wishes of those who read your submission as mere apathy.”
I paused and sighed; she sighed, too, and there was a silence between us.
“Must she not feel very happy and very proud,” thought I, “to be sitting there on the same bench with a prince, her hand in his, and he pouring out all his confidence in her ear? I cannot fancy a situation more full of interest.”
“After all, sir,” said she, calmly, “remember that Mrs. I Keats alone knows your secret. I have not the vaguest suspicion of it.”
“And yet,” said I, tenderly, “it is to you I would confide it; it is in your keeping I would wish to leave it; it is from you I would ask counsel as to my future.”
“Surely, sir, it is not to such inexperience as mine you would address yourself in a difficulty?”
“The plan I would carry out demands none of that crafty argument called 'knowing the world.' All that acquaintance with the byplay of life, its conventionalities and exactions, would be sadly out of place in an Alpine village, or a Tyrolese Dorf, where I mean to pitch my tent. Do you not think that your interest might be persuaded to track me so far?”