"Orphaned in my youth, the victim of unmerited wrong and unjust malevolence in manhood, there is not a human being save my comrades, now I hope in England, far away, to whom my heart clings—not one who cares for me, or for whom I can care——".
"Except me, I pray you, monsieur, except me," said she, smiling, and with growing colour.
"And me," added Angelique.
I kissed the hand of each, and was replying,
"Gratitude for the service I rendered makes you kind, Mademoiselle de Broglie——"
"Gratitude? Well, be it so," said she, with her dark French eyes so full of expression, that my heart beat quick and wildly.
At such times, was it not strange that Aurora's image with her soft, bright English beauty always came to memory? Yet, what was Aurora Gauntlet to me, or I to her? So I thrust the obtrusive idea—the little romance of the lace handkerchief—aside, and gradually my whole heart became filled with a deep and desperate love for Jacqueline, a love I dared scarcely acknowledge to myself.
Instead of replying to her last remark, I again lifted her hand and bent my lip over it; then she immediately rose and left me, followed by Angelique.
Had I exhibited too much eagerness—had I offended her? My heart sank at the idea.
Anticipating with hope and fear the morrow, dreaming sadly or tenderly over yesterday, ever communing with himself when alone, and abstracted when with all save one, what a miserable dog is your young lover! When one grows older, and becomes a veteran in the service of King Cupid, one learns to take these matters more quietly, like an old soldier under fire.