“Oh! my God—this is happiness so unhoped—so unlooked for—so unexpected, that I am bewildered-dazzled—amazed!” murmured the young man, a mist obscuring his brain—and yet a glorious, lustrous, golden mist through which he seemed to catch glimpses of paradise. “Friendship did you say, charming lady? Yet is not friendship a dangerous word for lips like ours to breathe—and a dangerous sentiment for hearts like ours to feel?”
“You speak as if you were under an apprehension that you are doing wrong?” said Perdita, in a tone of soft reproach. “Oh! is this candour and frankness? If you regret that you have pledged me your friendship—for such I augur of your words—I release you, Mr. Hatfield, from the bond: nay—I should be too proud to ask you to adhere to it!”
And now the young man beheld the fascinating woman in a new phasis of her charms;—for, with that ready versatility of aspect and demeanour which she had so completely at her command, she suddenly invested herself with all the majesty of sublime haughtiness;—no longer melting, tender, wanton, and voluptuous as Venus—but terrible, domineering, superb, and imperious as Juno,—no longer wearing the cestus of the Goddess of Love—but grasping, as the Queen of Heaven, the thunders of Olympian Jove.
Her eyes flashed fire—her cheeks flushed—her nostrils dilated—her lip curled—her neck arched proudly rather than gracefully—her bosom heaved as if it would burst the low corsage which only half restrained it—and her very form seemed to draw itself up into a height, which, even as she sate and of middling stature as she was, appeared colossal at that moment to the astounded gaze of the young man.
Never was artifice more successful—never was triumph more complete, on one side;—never was defeat more signal—never was humiliation more contrite, on the other. For, overwhelmed as it were by the sovereign majesty of that anger which he believed himself to have provoked, Charles Hatfield fell upon his knees before the haughty beauty, and seizing both her hands in his, he extravagantly devoured them with kisses, exclaiming, “Pardon—pardon!”
“Yes—yes: it is as frankly accorded as sincerely demanded!” exclaimed Perdita, not offering to withdraw her hands from the lips which were now glued to them: and in an instant her whole manner and appearance changed again—and when Charles Hatfield ventured to look up into the syren’s face, he saw her bending over him with cheeks flushed it is true, but not by anger—and with eyes that seemed to swim in wanton, liquid languor.
Rising from his suppliant posture, and now taking a seat by the side of Perdita on the sofa,—relinquishing her hands at the same time, for fear of giving offence by retaining them,—the infatuated young man, drunk with passion, said in a low murmuring tone, “We have not been acquainted more than one hour, and we have exchanged vows of friendship—is it not so?”
“Yes—if you do not repent now, and never will repent of that pledge on your part,” answered the dangerous young woman, who thus conducted her designing machinations with such consummate skill.
“No—never, never!” cried Hatfield. “And now we know each other as well as if we had been intimate since our infancy! To you, then, henceforth I am Charles; and you are to me——”
“Perdita,” said she.