“‘Shall I, wasting in despair.
Die because a woman’s fair?
Shall I pale
my cheeks with care
Because another’s rosy are?’”
He sang softly, enjoying more and more the delicious coolness of the breeze off the river.
“I’m nearly cured,” he said, bitterly.
“‘I know a maiden fair to see,
Take care!
She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!’”
He sang again in a low voice.
“My case exactly. Oh! my dear madam. I’m afraid you will come to grief one of these days, for it is not every fellow who will give you up as I do, and hide his wound under a smiling face.
“And do I give her up?” he said, softly; and there was a tender, dreamy look in his eyes as he spoke.
“Bah! what a madman I am!” he cried, with a mocking laugh; “she throws me over as she has thrown over others. What an idiot I was not to see all this sooner!
“The old story—the old story,” he muttered. “Man’s vanity and woman’s pride. I was conceited enough to think that, though she might trifle with others, I was her one special choice. There was no such other man upon the earth as I, Captain Hilton, the Apollo among his fellows. Serve me right!” he cried passionately, “for a weak fool, and I deserve it all, if only to be a lesson to bring me to my senses?”
Growing excited with his thoughts, he strolled down another path, leading to the lower lawn which sloped to the river.