"Stay, Algernon, stay," he cried; "stay and be happy. Cast not away from you, for vain fantasies, joy that is seldom afforded to any man more than once in life--opportunities which neglected never return, and once lost, leave unceasing regret behind them. Stay, and make her yours."
"Make her mine!" exclaimed Algernon Grey. "How?"
"Oh! a thousand courses are open," answered his cousin. "Shall I point them out?"
Algernon waved his hand and shook his head, with a bitter smile; "I see none," he answered.
"Well, listen," replied Lovet. "This Herbert, this uncle, is a soldier to fortune--a man of no rank or position to bar the path to one of your name and station. Troublous times are coming on; and over this fair Palatinate will, ere long, roll a sea of disasters, which will break bonds, shake ties, and, in a wide chaos of confusion, leave opportunities which a wise lover would profit by."
"Nay, nay," cried Algernon Grey, starting up and raising himself to his full height, "no more of such a theme; you do not understand me, William."
"Right well, my cousin," replied Lovet, with one of his sarcastic smiles; "but I thought it best to put the worst case first, and set your shrewish puritanism in arms, by displaying the path that any other wicked worldlings would take. The fair lady's heart is, doubtless, more than half gone already; and though, perhaps, like all these proud beauties, she might start a little at first from the thought of such unconditional surrender, yet that said little tyrant Love would compel obedience to his commands. Then, however, there is another course to take. The high-stilted course, in all respects suited to your stiff and magnificent ideas."
"Ay, what is that?" cried Algernon Grey, turning quickly toward him, and betrayed, by a sudden gleam of hope, into a greater display of his feelings than he could have desired.
Lovet suppressed the smile, that half curled his lip, ere his cousin saw it; though he knew well that even to have raised up for a moment a vision of happiness before his cousin's eyes, was so much gained for his own plans. "The matter, methinks, is very easy," he answered; "you have nought to do but first to make her yours beyond recall; and then, being much too virtuous to remain in an unhallowed union, give her the deepest proof of your tenderness and love by breaking this boy-marriage of yours with the Lady Catherine. What right have fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, or grandfathers and guardians either, to pledge a boy of fifteen by a vow at the altar to an engagement for life, the very nature of which he does not understand? It is both absurd and wicked; there may be many doubts whether it is lawful--"
"None, none," cried Algernon Grey; "it has taken place a hundred times. Poor Essex and myself are in the same sad case."