Gradually he found that, with men at least, and with soldiers especially, personal beauty formed no necessary ingredient in friendship; and with a warm heart and noble feelings--guarded, however, by wisdom and discretion--he soon rendered himself universally liked and esteemed in the different corps with which he served, and had an opportunity of selecting one or two of his fellow-officers for more intimate regard. Unfortunately, however, he saw no reason to change his opinion in respect to woman's love. Indeed, he sought not to change it; for, as we have already said, the belief that female affection could only be won by personal beauty was one of those intimate convictions which were interwoven with all the fabric of his ideas. He ceased to think of it; he devoted himself entirely to his profession; he won honour and the highest renown; he found himself liked and esteemed by his military companions, courted and admired in general society, and he was content: at least, if he was not content, the regrets which would not wholly be smothered--the yearnings for nearer ties and dearer affections, which are principles, not thoughts--only found vent occasionally in such a sigh as that which we have just described.
His companion, though he remarked it, made no comment on his sigh; for, notwithstanding the most intimate relationships of friendship which existed between himself and his fellow-traveller, and which had arisen in mutual services that may hereafter be more fully mentioned, he felt that the length of their acquaintance had not been such as to warrant his inquiring more curiously into those private intricacies of the bosom from which such signs of feeling issued forth. He saw, however, that the proximate cause of the slight shadow that came over his friend lay in something that he himself had said in picturing the happy dreams that checkered his misanthropy; and putting his horse into a quicker pace as they got upon the level ground, he changed the subject while they rode on.
The time, as we have said, was evening; and as the strangers passed by the gipsy encampment, a flood of purple light, pouring from as splendid a heaven as ever held out the promise of bright after-days, was streaming over the road; but as the travellers reached the flat, and turned the angle of the wood where the road wound round the bases of the hills, the sky was already waxing gray, and a small twinkling spot of gold here and there told that darkness was coming fast. At the distance of about half a mile farther, the river was first seen flowing broad and silvery through the valley; and a quarter of an hour more brought the travellers to a spot where the water, taking an abrupt turn round a salient promontory thrown out from the main body of the hills, left hardly room for the road between the margin and the wood. On the other side of the river, which might be a hundred yards broad, was a narrow green meadow, backed by some young fir plantings, and just beyond the first turn of the bank a deep sombre dell led away to the right; while the shadows of the trees over the water, the darkening hue of the sky, and the wild uninhabited aspect of the whole scene, gave a sensation of gloom, which was not diminished by a large raven flapping heavily up from the edge of the water, and hovering with a hoarse croak over some carrion it had found among the reeds.
"This is a murderous-looking spot enough!" said Colonel Manners, turning slightly towards De Vaux, who had been silent for some minutes; "this is a murderous-looking spot enough!"
"Well may it be so!" answered his companion abruptly; "well may it be so; for on this very spot my uncle was murdered twenty years ago."
"Indeed!" exclaimed his fellow-traveller; "indeed--but on reflection," he added, "I remember having heard something of it, though I was then a boy, and have forgotten all the circumstances."
He spoke as if he would willingly have heard them again detailed; but, for a moment or two, De Vaux made no reply; and the next instant the sound of a horse's feet at a quick trot suddenly broke upon the ear, and called the attention of both. In a minute more, a horseman wrapped in a large roquelaure passed them rapidly; and though he neither spoke nor bowed, his sudden appearance was enough to break off the thread of their discourse. When he was gone, Colonel Manners felt that, though De Vaux might take it up again if he would, he himself could not in propriety do so. De Vaux, however, was silent; for he was not one of those men to whom the accidents and misfortunes of their friends and relations furnished matter for pleasant discourse; and the topic of course dropped there. Perhaps, indeed, the younger traveller showed some inclination even to avoid the subject; for he led the conversation almost immediately into another channel, pointing out to his friend the various hills and landmarks which distinguished the grounds of his father from those of his aunt, and dwelling with enthusiasm upon the pleasures that his boyhood had there known, and the hopes which his return had re-awakened in his bosom; and yet there was mingled with the whole a touch of fastidiousness which contrasted strangely enough with the warmth of feeling and expression to which he gave way in other respects. He seemed to doubt the very love, the happiness of which he pictured so brightly; he seemed to distrust the joys to which he was so sensitively alive; he even seemed, in some degree, to sneer at himself for giving the credence that he did to those things which he most desired to believe true.
But Edward de Vaux had been brought up in a fastidious school. He had lived at the acmé of fortune and trod upon circumstances all his life, and this we hold to be the true way of becoming misanthropical. It is nonsense to suppose that a man turns misanthrope in consequence of great misfortunes. No such thing! it is by being fortunate ter et amplius. The spoiled children of the blind goddess are those that kick at her wheel; and those on whom she showers nothing but misfortunes cling tight to the tire, in hopes of a better turn, till the next whirl casts them off into the wide hereafter.
Edward de Vaux stood at the climax of fortune. Never in his life had he known what a serious reverse or great misfortune is; and consequently he had gathered together all the petty vexations and minor disappointments that he had met with, and, to use the term of Napoleon Bonaparte, had nearly stung himself to death with wasps. Perhaps, too, he might be fastidious by inheritance, for his father was so in a still higher degree than himself; though in the father it showed itself in irritable impatience, and a sort of contempt both tyrannical and insulting towards those whom he disliked; while in the son, mingled with, if not springing from, finer feelings: passing, too, through the purifying medium of a gentler heart, and corrected by a high sense of what is gentlemanly, his fastidiousness seldom showed itself except in a passing sneer at any thing that is false, affected, or absurd, in an indignant sarcasm at that which is base or evil, or in petulant irritability at that which is weak.
As he now rode onward to rejoin those friends whom he had not seen for nearly three years, accompanied by a companion who had never seen them at all, the little world of his heart was in a strange commotion. All the joy which an affectionate disposition can feel was rising up at every point against the sway of cold propriety, and yet he tormented himself with a thousand imaginary annoyances. Now he fancied that the delight he felt and expressed was undignified, and might lower him in the eyes of his companion; now he chose to doubt that his reception from those he had left behind would be warm enough to justify the exuberant pleasure that he himself experienced; while, keenly alive to the slightest ridicule, he shrunk from the idea of exposing, even to his dearest friend, one single spot in his heart to which the lash could be applied.