“You may trust me, John,” she said, hesitating as she called my name for the first time.
After a pause, I said, biting a blade of grass with my lips—
“I had been weeping, Carlotta, when you came to me—weeping because the beautiful day made me sad.”
“You sad? you weeping? you, who are so full of life and gaiety!” she said, looking at me with surprise; then adding, in a tone of deep sadness, as she thought of herself, “alas! what cause can you have for tears, in such a happy home, surrounded by those you hold most dear.”
“What better cause for tears than disappointed love? Carlotta, I have loved Lulie since I could remember, and if ever one life can be bound in another mine has been in her’s, and yet she does not love me. From her own lips I have learned this bitter truth. I could bear up had I one gleam of hope; but all is dark, and far worse than the extinction of hope is the knowledge that she loves another. Oh, heaven! how it grinds me to the earth to feel that he, who is most unworthy, should receive her smiles; that a love I would give my life for is wasted on one who regards it as the trifle of a day.”
I paused and looked gloomily up at the bright blue sky, where a fleecy Delos floated.
“I, too, think her love is wasted on Frank Paning,” said Carlotta, as I looked again at her face. “He may admire her beauty, and no doubt feels flattered by her preference, but he does not love her as she thinks he does. It will be a sad day with her when she learns the truth.”
“Yes,” I replied, savagely; “she will then know what I feel.”
“Do not speak harshly of her, John, for while she loves Frank Paning, yet I believe she esteems you more.”
“But how can you speak for her feelings?” I asked, with a faint touch of a sneer in my tone.