"Cast the whole responsibility on me," said Gustave encouragingly. "I have placed you in this position, have woven the 'intrigue,' as Miss Clifford so flatteringly expresses it; I will also bear the responsibility when the moment for explanation comes. But now the watchword is 'forward!' and we must not fail for a moment. When we are so near our aim, we must persevere. Think of that, and promise me that you will endure to the end."
Frida drooped her head; she did not refuse, but neither did she give the required promise.
Gustave continued in a serious tone--
"Jessie, too, urges me to a declaration, and, I see, cannot comprehend my hesitation. She does not understand the circumstances, but believes that you are a stranger to her guardian, who has won his affection, and to whom he would gladly open his arms. But we"--here he seized Frida's hand, and grasped it firmly in his own--"we know better, my poor child! We know that you have to struggle with a gloomy hatred which has already poisoned his life, and has rooted itself so firmly in that life that a few kind words cannot banish it. I struggled for your rights when my brother left Europe, have tried again and again, and have thus learnt how deeply grafted in him is this miserable idea. You must become still more to him if it is entirely to be torn from him. Can you think that without the most urgent necessity I would lay such a yoke upon you?"
"Oh, no, certainly not! I will obey you in everything, only it is so hard to lie."
"Not to me!" declared Gustave. "I would never have believed that the Jesuitical principle, 'the end justifies the means,' could have been such a perfect antidote to all the pricks of conscience. I lie with a kind of peace of mind, or rather with a conscious sublimity. But you need not take a pattern by me. It is by no means necessary that a child like you should have attained such a height of objectivity. On the contrary, falsehood must and should be difficult to you, and it gives me the greatest satisfaction to know that such is the case."
"But Jessie," said Frida, "may I not at least take her into our confidence? She has been so kind, so affectionate to me, a stranger, has opened her arms as if to a sister"--
"To get rid of me!" interrupted Gustave. "Yes, that is why she received you with open arms. In order to escape my wooing she would have deceived the very old gentleman himself, if he would have delivered her from the unwelcome suitor. No, no, Jessie is out of the question. It is my special delight to be despised by her, and I must enjoy it a little while longer."
"Because the whole thing is only play to you," said Frida reproachfully, "but she suffers from it."
"Who? Jessie? Not at all. She is in the highest degree shocked at my wickedness, and I must give myself the one little satisfaction of leaving her still this sentiment."