“A certainty, Imogene; there is going to be a change in my life,” and then he told her all.
“Well,” said Imogene, “it would be selfish not to be happy at what I hear; but though I hope I am happy, I need not be joyful. I never used to be nervous, but I am afraid I am getting so. All these great changes rather shake me. This adventure of the prince—as Mr. Waldershare says, it is history. Then Miss Myra’s great marriage, and your promotion—although they are exactly what we used to dream about, and wished a fairy would accomplish, and somehow felt that, somehow or other, they must happen—yet now they have occurred, one is almost as astounded as delighted. We certainly have been very happy in Warwick Street, at least I have been, all living as it were together. But where shall we be this time next year? All scattered, and perhaps not even the Rodneys under this roof. I know not how it is, but I dread leaving the roof where one has been happy.”
“Oh! you know you must leave it one day or other, Imogene. You are sure to marry; that you cannot avoid.”
“Well, I am not by any means sure about that,” said Imogene. “Mr. Waldershare, in educating me, as he says, as a princess, has made me really neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor even that coarser but popular delicacy never forgotten. I could not unite my life with a being who was not refined in mind and in manners, and the men of my class in life, who are the only ones after all who might care to marry me, shock my taste, I am ashamed to say so. I am not sure it is not wicked to think it even; but so it is.”
“Why do you not marry Waldershare?” said Endymion.
“That would be madness! I do not know any alliance that could prove more unfortunate. Mr. Waldershare must never marry. All people of imagination, they say, are difficult to live with; but a person who consists solely of imagination, like Mr. Waldershare, who has indeed no other attribute—before a year was past, married, he would fly to the desert or to La Trappe, commit terrible scandals from mere weariness of feeling, write pasquinades against the wife of his bosom, and hold us both up to the fierce laughter of the world. No, no; he is the best, the dearest, and the most romantic of friends; tender as a father, and sometimes as wise, for genius can be everything. He is going to rise early to-morrow, which he particularly dislikes, because he will not let me go to the station alone; though I tell him, as I often tell him, those are the becoming manners of my class.”
“But you might meet a person of the refinement you require,” said Endymion, “with a moderate and yet a sufficient income, who would not be unworthy of you.”
“I doubt it,” said Imogene.
“But, do not doubt it, dear Imogene,” said Endymion, advancing; “such charms as yours, both of body and of mind, such a companion in life, so refined, so accomplished, and yet endowed with such clear sense, and such a sweet disposition—believe me”——
But at this moment a splendid equipage drove up to the door, with powdered footmen and long canes behind, and then a terrible rap, like the tattoo of a field-marshal.