“Say on then, my dear boy! say on!” exclaimed the benevolent old gentleman. But Frank, now that he had got leave to speak, was struck dumb. He thought it was perfectly easy and simple to ask for Zuleime, but now the request, like Macbeth’s amen, stuck in his throat. “Come,” said the old gentleman, running his fat arm through Frank’s slender one, “give me the support of your arm, for I am not so young and active as you are, and let us take a little walk up the path towards Hardbargain. Perhaps we may meet Archer, and bring him back with us to breakfast. He is not at the house, is he?”
“No, sir,” said Frank, glad to recover the use of his tongue.
“We expect him here to breakfast. We shall probably meet him. Come! Well, now! what is it?” he asked, as they turned their backs on the house.
Frank had plucked up his courage, and now spoke to the purpose.
“Mr. Clifton, as I am going away immediately after breakfast, and as I am to be absent for an indefinite length of time, I wish before I leave to tell you that which lies upon my heart—” here he paused a little time to collect his thoughts and fine words, while the old gentleman attended with an encouraging expression of countenance. Frank resumed—“Mr. Clifton, I love your daughter Zuleime. And I have come to beg your sanction to our engagement!” As the old man only said, “Whew-w-w-w!” Frank continued—“You know my rank in the army, and my prospect of promotion. You are acquainted with my family, and are aware of their interest and influence in the country. Allow me farther to add, that my own private fortune amounts to fifty thousand dollars. And I will settle thirty thousand on my bride. Besides which—”
“Stay, stay—my dear fellow, stay!” interrupted the old man, with a troubled look. “This is all nonsense, now! Zuleime is a child. And you have not known her more than six weeks. Love Zuleime! Pooh, pooh! You young men are so flighty and fickle in your fancies! You get frantic about every new face you see, and think yourselves in love! Pooh, pooh! Now, Frank, my boy, come! let’s hear no more of it! It’s all nonsense! You young officers are always in love, or fancying yourselves so! I dare say, you have been in love with all the daughters of all your commanders, and Heaven forefend, a little platonically smitten with all their wives, too! Come, I know you! Nonsense! Let’s hear no more of it!”
“Mr. Clifton, I am no trifler in matters of the affections. I never have been. I never shall be, I hope! And when I tell you, upon my sacred honor, that never in my life have I ‘flirted,’ as it is called, with a woman—that never in my life have I either loved or addressed the language of love to a woman—except Zuleime—you will believe me!”
“Oh-h-h-h!” exclaimed the old gentleman, with an exceedingly bored look. “It’s all folly, all nonsense, I tell you! A sudden fancy! Nothing more! Let’s drop the subject.”
“Mr. Clifton,” said the young man, gravely and sorrowfully, for he saw that the old gentleman rather evaded than denied or accepted his suit, “I have never, in my whole life, been addicted to taking sudden and evanescent fancies, as you might judge, from what I told you! And when I tell you that I love your daughter Zuleime, I mean that I love her sincerely and earnestly, with my whole heart and soul—and that I shall love her to the last hour of my life!”
“Bah! bah! It’s all tom-foolery, I tell you! You get yourself shut up in a country house with a pretty girl, and of course you fall in love with her! To be sure! What else could you do? It’s expected of you! You’d disappoint us if you didn’t! But it is such love as will not outlast your journey to your regiment.”