“Is it possible, Potts,” said I, “that she has detected this turn of yours for the imaginative line, and that she will not encourage it, even tacitly? Has she said, 'There is a young man of genius, gifted marvellously with the richest qualities, and yet such is the exuberance of his fancy that he is positively its slave. Not content to let him walk the earth like other men, she attaches wings to him and carries him off into the upper air. I will endeavor, however hard the task, to clip his feathers and bring him back to the common haunts of men'? Try it, fair enchantress, try it!”
The rain was now coming down in torrents, and with such swooping gusts of wind that I was forced to fasten the leather curtain in front of me, and sit in utter darkness, denied even the passing pleasure of seeing the drenched postboys bobbing up and down on the wet saddles. I grew moody and sad. Every Blue Devil of my acquaintance came to pay his visit to me, and brought a few more of his private friends. I bethought me that I was hourly travelling away further and further from my home; that all this long road must surely be retraced one day or other, though not in a carriage and post, but probably in a one-horse cart, with a mounted gendarme on either side of it, and a string to my two wrists in their bridle hands. I thought of that vulgar herd of mankind so ready to weep over a romance, and yet send the man who acts one to a penal settlement. I thought how I should be described as the artful knave, the accomplished swindler. As if I was the first man who ever took an exaggerated estimate of his own merits! Go into the House of Commons, visit the National Gallery, dine at a bar or a military mess, frequent, in one word, any of the haunts of men, and with what pièces pour servir à l'histoire of self-deception will you come back loaded!
The sliding window at my back was again drawn aside, and I heard Miss Herbert's voice,—
“If I am not giving you too much trouble, sir, would you kindly see if I have not dropped a bracelet—a small jet bracelet—in the coupé?”
“I 'm in the dark here, but I'll do my best to find it.”
“We are very nearly so, too,” said she; “and Mrs. Keats is fast asleep, quite unmindful of the thunder.”
With some struggling I managed to get down on my knees, and was soon engaged in a very vigorous search. To aid me, I lighted a lucifer match, and by its flickering glare I saw right in front of me that beautiful pale face, enclosed as it were in a frame by the little window. She blushed at the fixedness of my gaze, for I utterly forgot myself in my admiration, and stared as though at a picture. My match went out, and I lit another. Alas! there she was still, and I could not force myself to turn away, but gazed on in rapture.
“I'm sorry to give you this trouble, sir,” said she, in some confusion. “Pray never mind it. It will doubtless be found this evening when we arrive.”
Another lucifer, and now I pretended to be in most eager pursuit; but somehow my eyes would look up and rest upon her sweet countenance.
“A diamond bracelet, you said?” muttered I, not knowing what I was saying.