“Nay, if we are to moralise on worldly felicity, I fear that instead of inspiriting you, which is my wish, I shall prove but a too congenial companion. But such a theme is not for you.”
“And why should it be for one who, though he lecture me with such gravity and gracefulness, can scarcely be entitled to play the part of Mentor by the weight of years?” said the Baroness, with a smile: “for one who, I trust, who I should think, as little deserved, and was as little inured to, sorrow as myself!”
“To find that you have cause to grieve,” said Vivian, “and to learn from you, at the same time, your opinion of my own lot, prove what I have too often had the sad opportunity of observing, that the face of man is scarcely more genuine and less deceitful than these masquerade dresses which we now wear.”
“But you are not unhappy?” asked the Baroness with a quick voice.
“Not now,” said Vivian.
His companion seated herself on the marble balustrade which surrounded the fountain: she did not immediately speak again, and Vivian was silent, for he was watching her motionless countenance as her large brilliant eyes gazed with earnestness on the falling water sparkling in the moonlight. Surely it was not the mysterious portrait at Beckendorff’s that he beheld!
She turned. She exclaimed in an agitated voice, “O friend! too lately found, why have we met to part?”
“To part, dearest!” said he, in a low and rapid voice, and he gently took her hand; “to part! and why should we part? why—”
“Ask not; your question is agony!” She tried to withdraw her hand, he pressed it with renewed energy, it remained in his, she turned away her head, and both were silent.
“O! lady,” said Vivian, as he knelt at her side, “why are we not happy?”