As I looked about the room, it seemed as if I had been there but yesterday. The folding-doors lay open to the garden, just as I had seen them last; and save that the flowers seemed fewer, and those which remained of a darker and more sombre tint, all seemed unchanged. There lay the guitar to whose thrilling chords my heart had bounded; there, the drawing over which I had bent in admiring pleasure, suggesting some tints of light or shadow, as the fairy fingers traced them; every chair was known to me, and I greeted them as things I cared for.
While thus I scanned each object around me, I was struck by a little china vase which, unlike its other brethren, contained a bouquet of dead and faded flowers; the blood rushed to my cheek; I started up; it was one I had myself presented to her the day before we parted. It was in that same vase I placed it; the very table, too, stood in the same position beside that narrow window. What a rush of thoughts came pouring on me! And oh!—shall I confess it?—how deeply did such a mute testimony of remembrance speak to my heart, at the moment that I felt myself unloved and uncared for by another! I walked hurriedly up and down, a maze of conflicting resolves combating in my mind, while one thought ever recurred: “Would that I had not come there!” and yet after all it may mean nothing; some piece of passing coquetry which she will be the very first to laugh at. I remembered how she spoke of poor Howard; what folly to take it otherwise! “Be it so, then,” said I, half aloud; “and now for my part of the game;” and with this I took from my pocket the light-blue scarf she had given me the morning we parted, and throwing it over my shoulder, prepared to perform my part in what I had fully persuaded myself to be a comedy. The time, however, passed on, and she came not; a thousand high-flown Portuguese phrases had time to be conned over again and again by me, and I had abundant leisure to enact my coming part; but still the curtain did not rise. As the day was wearing, I resolved at last to write a few lines, expressive of my regret at not meeting her, and promising myself an early opportunity of paying my respects under more fortunate circumstances. I sat down accordingly, and drawing the paper towards me, began in a mixture of French and Portuguese, as it happened, to indite my billet.
“Senhora Inez—” no—“Ma chère Mademoiselle Inez—” confound it, that’s too intimate; well, here goes: “Monsieur O’Malley presente ses respects—” that will never do; and then, after twenty other abortive attempts, I began thoughtlessly sketching heads upon the paper, and scribbling with wonderful facility in fifty different ways: “Ma charmante amie—Ma plus chère Inez,” etc., and in this most useful and profitable occupation did I pass another half-hour.
How long I should have persisted in such an employment it is difficult to say, had not an incident intervened which suddenly but most effectually put an end to it. As the circumstance is one which, however little striking in itself, had the greatest and most lasting influence upon my future career, I shall, perhaps, be excused in devoting another chapter to its recital.
CHAPTER X.
A PLEASANT PREDICAMENT.
As I sat vainly endeavoring to fix upon some suitable and appropriate epithet by which to commence my note, my back was turned towards the door of the garden; and so occupied was I in my meditations, that even had any one entered at the time, in all probability I should not have perceived it. At length, however, I was aroused from my study by a burst of laughter, whose girlish joyousness was not quite new to me. I knew it well; it was the senhora herself; and the next moment I heard her voice.
“I tell you, I’m quite certain I saw his face in the mirror as I passed. Oh, how delightful! and you’ll be charmed with him; so, mind, you must not steal him from me; I shall never forgive you if you do; and look, only look! he has got the blue scarf I gave him when he marched to the Douro.”
While I perceived that I was myself seen, I could see nothing of the speaker, and wishing to hear something further, appeared more than ever occupied in the writing before me.