Emily very soon saw that her sister spoke with an unusual degree of irritation. The arrival of her lover had not overjoyed her; it had scarcely cheered her. He came, too, not full of high hopes and animated by the prospect of a bright future, speculating on the happy days that were before them, and even fixing the time they were to meet again, but depressed and dispirited, darkly hinting at all the dangers of absence, and gloomily telling over the long miles of ocean that were so soon to roll between them.
Now Florence was scarcely prepared for all this. She had expected to be comforted, and supported, and encouraged; and yet from herself now, all the encouragement and all the support was to be derived! She was to infuse hope, to supply courage, and inspire determination. He was only there to be sustained and supported. It is true she knew nothing of the trials and difficulties which were before him, and she could neither discuss nor lighten them; but she could talk of India as a mere neighbouring country, the “overland” a rather pleasant tour, and two years—what signified two years, when it was to be their first and last separation? For, if he could not obtain the leave he was all but promised, it was arranged that she should go out to Calcutta, and their marriage take place there.
He rallied at last under all these cheering suggestions, and gradually dropped into that talk so fascinating to Promessi Sposi in which affection and worldliness are blended together, and where the feelings of the heart and the furniture of the drawing-room divide the interest between them. There was a dash of romance, too, in the notion of life in the far East—some far-away home in the Neilgherries, some lone bungalow on the Sutlej—that helped them to paint their distant landscape with more effect, and they sat, in imagination, under a spreading plantain on the Himalaya, and watched the blood-red sunsets over the plains of Hindostan. “Time passed very rapidly in this fashion. Love is the very sublime of egotism, and people never weary of themselves. The last evening—sad things these last evenings—came, and they strolled out to take a last look on the lake and the snow-white Alps beyond it. The painful feeling of having so short a time to say so much was over each of them, and made them more silent than usual. As they thus loitered along, they reached a spot where a large evergreen oak stood alone, spreading its gigantic arms over the water, and from which the view of the lake extended for miles in each direction.
“This is the spot to have a summer-house, Florry,” said Loyd; “and when I come back I’ll build one here.”
“You see there is a rustic bench here already. Harry made it.”
Scarcely were the words uttered than she felt het cheek burning, and the tingling rush of her blood to her temples.
“Harry means Mr. Calvert, I conclude?” said he, coldly.
“Yes,” said she, faintly.
“It was a name I have never uttered since I passed this threshold, Florry, and I vowed to myself that I would not be the first to allude to it My pledge, however, went no further, and I am now released from its obligation. Let us talk of him freely.”
“No, Joseph, I had rather not. When he was leaving this, it was his last wish that his name was not to be uttered here. We gave him our solemn promise, and I feel sure you will not ask me to forget it.”