"What an ass I have been!" he thought. "What the devil could induce me to forget myself so far? She will come, expecting to hear me declare myself. But I can't marry her. I can't offer her beggary as a return for her love. If Heath should have told the truth. D—n it, he can't be such an unfeeling egotist as not to make some provision for his children! No, no; I'll not believe that. A few thousands he must in common decency have set aside, or he would never be able to look honest men in the face. Besides, Vyner doesn't appear to be particularly selfish. However, it may be true; and if so——
"Can I invent something of importance to communicate instead of my love? Let me see. That will look so odd—to make an assignation for any other purpose than the one! But she doesn't come. Can she be hesitating? I wish her fears would get the better!
"She won't come. That will release me from the difficulty. It is the best thing that could happen.
"I see a light in her room. What is she doing? Struggling with herself perhaps; or perhaps waiting till the coast is clear. D—n the cigar, out again!"
Upon what slight foundations sometimes hang the most important events!
That is rather a profound remark; not positively new, perhaps, but singularly true. It has escaped from my pen, and as a pencil mark of approbation is sure to be made against it in every copy in every circulating library, why should I hesitate to let it go forth?
A fine essay might be written entitled, "The Philosophy of Life, as collected from the marked passages in modern novels." And I offer the essayist, the remark above, as his opening aphorism.
But I digress.
The situation which suggested the foregoing aphorism was curious enough to warrant my writing it; for had Blanche appeared at the rendezvous at this time, or a few minutes earlier, it is most likely, from the frame of mind in which her lover then was, that he would have made some shuffling excuse or other, and declared anything to her but his love. But she hesitated. With a coyness natural to the sex, she shrunk back from that which she most desired. Nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to hear Cecil swear he loved her, and yet she trembled at the idea of meeting him to hear it said.
She kept him waiting half an hour.