“Oh! my beloved Lorenzo,” exclaimed Laura, now giving way to all that tenderness towards him which was really in accordance with her inclinations, but which her more selfish interests would have prompted her to subdue and stifle had not this last announcement met her ear: “Oh! my beloved Lorenzo,” she cried, pressing closer to him, so that he could feel her bosom throbbing like the undulations of a mighty tide—for she was now powerfully excited, alike morally and sensually: “how can I reward—how recompense this generosity on your part?”
“By becoming my wife—yes, my wife, Laura—if you will,” returned the enraptured young man. “For you know not how I love you—how intense is the passion with which you have inspired me. I am blind and deaf to all—everything, save your beauties and your witching voice. If you be the greatest profligate the world ever saw, I care not—so madly do I love you.”
“And when this delirium shall have passed away, Lorenzo,” murmured Laura, concealing her burning countenance on his breast, “you will repent the rashness which induced you to wed with one who had so easily abandoned herself to you when a complete stranger—and whom—whom—you knew to be unchaste even then!” she added, her voice becoming touchingly low and tremulously plaintive.
“To suspect even for an instant that I should ever repent of making you my wife, Laura, is to doubt my love,” said the Count of Carignano—for such we may now call him; “and that wounds me to the very soul! ’Tis sufficient for me to know that you are an angel of beauty—and I reck not if you are a demoness in character. But that I am sure is impossible. Your loveliness may have led you into temptations, and your temperament may have induced you to yield: but that you are generous—good—amiable, I am convinced, Laura;—and that you will prove faithful to one who places all his own happiness in you, and who will study incessantly to promote yours—oh! of that I am well assured also. Say, then, my adored one—can you consent to become the Countess of Carignano, with a revenue of twelve thousand a year?”
“Not for the dross—oh! not for the despicable dross,” murmured Laura, scarcely able to restrain her joy within reasonable bounds, and induce her suitor to believe that no selfish interests were mixed up with the motives for that assent which she was about to give,—“not for vile and sordid gold, Lorenzo, do I respond in the affirmative to the generous proposal that you have now made to me—because I myself am possessed of a fortune of sixty thousand pounds: but it is because I love you—yes—I love you, my handsome Lorenzo——”
“Say no more, Laura—beloved Laura!” interrupted the impassioned young nobleman, straining her to his breast: then fondly—oh! how fondly did he gaze upon her—upon her, that guileful woman—reading the reflection of his own voluptuous feelings in her fine large eyes, and then bestowing upon her the most ardent caresses.
Several minutes passed away,—minutes that glided by with rapid and silent wings;—and the handsome pair scarcely noticed that a single second had elapsed since last they spoke.
“Tell me, my sweet Laura,” at length said the Count, toying with the glossy and fragrant tresses of her hair,—“tell me what meant certain words which you addressed to me on that evening when I was first blessed with your kindness. You declared that you could not marry me, although you were not married—that you could not be my mistress, although you were not the mistress of another—and that you could not hold out any hope to me, although you were pledged to no other man.”
“That language, apparently so mysterious, is easily explained,” said Laura, forcing a deep blush into her cheeks as she spoke, and winding one of her snow-white and naked arms round her lover’s neck, so that the contact of the firm warm flesh against his cheek sent the blood rushing through his veins in boiling currents. “I had abandoned myself to you in a moment of caprice—no, of weakness—of passion, which I could not subdue: I had yielded to an invincible impulse, not knowing its nature, and not waiting to ask myself the question. But when you had been with me a short time, I felt that I could love you—yes—deeply, tenderly love you; and as I fancied that, even though you protested the contrary, you could entertain no lasting affection for me, but on the other hand would soon regret any hastily and rashly-formed connexion, I was resolved not to place my own heart in jeopardy, nor incur the risk of loving well and then sustaining a cruel disappointment. For I feared that you addressed me in an impassioned tone only because you were labouring under the delirium of passing excitement and strong though evanescent feelings. Thus was it, then—for my own sake—that I spoke mysteriously to you, in order to convince you of the necessity of seeing me no more. But now, my Lorenzo—now, that you have had several days to reflect upon the proposal which you then made me—now that I have received such unequivocal proofs of your love, and that I no longer fear lest you should be acting in obedience to a sudden impulse,—oh! now, I say, I can hesitate no longer—and I will become your wife!”
The Count of Carignano drank in the delicious poison of her words until his very soul was intoxicated; and loving so well as did this generous-hearted, confiding young man, he paused not for an instant to demand of himself whether he were loving wisely. But he was contented to risk all and everything,—happiness—honour—fame—and name,—in this marriage upon which he had set his mind:—he longed—he burnt—he craved to possess Laura altogether—to have her to himself;—and he felt jealous of all the rest of the world until the nuptial knot should have been tied. It is in this humour and in such a temperament that the highest peer will marry an actress, who would jump at an offer to become his pensioned mistress for a few hundreds a-year.