She drooped over him, so as to cover his head with her luxuriant hair, and kissed him on the brow.
His heart swelled with triumph, and his senses were violently agitated.
She also triumphed, as she gazed upon the fierce, impetuous creature whom she had subdued, and who now sat at her feet, his head resting on her lap, passion darting from his lustrous eyes, sitting there her slave and her adorer. A scornful remembrance of the haughty Violet, over whom she now triumphed, gave additional keenness to her delight.
After allowing him to remain some minutes in ecstatic contemplation, she bade him rise.
"Oh, let me still sit here. Here could I spend my life. Here, my own exquisite Mary, at your feet—your strange eyes looking thus into mine, and stirring the fibres of my heart as no eyes ever stirred them."
"Dearest Marmaduke, remember our love is sacred, but it must not make us forget prudence—
Salvando la tua vita e'l nostro onore."
This quotation from the passage in Petrarch at once checked the current of Marmaduke's feelings, and made him remember he had a part to play. It quelled the emotions of the scene, and recalled to him that he was but an actor.
He rose, and with well-feigned reluctance entered into her plans for the preservation of her honour and her virtue, without, at the same time, affecting their love. They were to love Platonically; they were to imitate Petrarch and Laura in the depth, constancy, and purity of their affection.
"Now," thought he, "for my revenge."