"You are unwise, my Julia, to show this truant how much you prize his coming; how painfully his absence depresses you. Sages declare that women should not let their lords guess, even, how much they are loved."
"Why, mother," replied Julia, her bright face gleaming radiantly with the pure lustre of her artless spirit, "I am glad to see him; I do prize his coming; I do love Paullus. Why, then, should I dissemble, when to do so were dishonest, and were folly likewise?"
"You should not tell him so, my child," replied the mother, "I fear you should not tell him so. Men are not like us women, who love but the more devotedly, the more fondly we are cherished. There is, I fear, something of the hunter's, of the conqueror's, ardour, in their passion; the pursuit is the great allurement; the winning the great rapture; and the prize, once securely won, too often cast aside, and disregarded."
"No! no!" returned the girl eagerly, fixing her eyes on her lover's features, as if she would read therein the outward evidences of that nobility of soul, which she believed to exist within. "I will not believe it; it were against all gratitude! all honor! all heart-truth! No, I will not believe it; and if I did, Hortensia, by all the Gods, I had rather live without love, than hold it on so vile a tenure of deceit. What, treasure up the secrets of your soul from your soul's lord? No! no! I would as soon conceal my devotion from the powers of heaven, as my affections from their rightful master. I, for one, never will believe that all men are selfish and unfaithful."
"May the Gods grant, my Julia, that sad experience shall never teach you that they are so. I, at least, will believe, and pray, that, what his sex may be soever, our Paullus will prove worthy ever of that best gift of God, a pure woman's pure and unselfish love."
"Oh! may it be so," answered Paullus, clasping his hands fervently together. "May I die ere I wrong my Julia! and be you sure, sweet girl, that your simple trust is philosophy far truer than the sage's lore. Base must his nature be, and his heart corrupt, who remains unsubdued to artlessness and love, such as yours, my Julia."
"But tell us, now," said the elder lady, "what was it that detained you, and where were you all the day? We expected you till the seventh hour of the night, yet you came not."
"I will tell you, Hortensia," he replied; "as we drive along; for I had rather do so, where there be no ears to overhear us. You must let me be your charioteer to-day, and your venerable grey-headed coachman shall ride with my wild imp Myron, in the car, if you will permit it."
"Willingly," she replied. "Then something strange has happened. Is it not so?"
"I knew it," exclaimed Julia, clasping her snowy hands together, "I knew it; I have read it in his eye this half hour. What can it be? it is something fearful, I am certain."