Amazed at so extraordinary a charge from her hitherto always respectful as well as fraternally affectionate cousin, she reddened with pain and displeasure. Rising from her seat, and averting her tearful eyes, she said, "I did not expect this cruel, this ungenerous speech from you, Pembroke! What have I done to deserve so rude, so unfeeling a reproach?"
Pembroke threw his arm round her. "Come," said he, in a sportive voice; "don't be tragical. I never meant to reproach you, Mary. I dare say if you gave your heart, it was only in return for his. I know you are a grateful girl; and I verily believe you won't find much difference between my friend the young Count Sobieski and the forlorn Constantine."
A suspicion of the truth flashed across Miss Beaufort's mind. Unable to speak, she caught hold of her cousin's hands, and looking eagerly in his face, her eyes declared the question she would have asked.
Pembroke laughed triumphantly. A servant entering to tell him that Sir Robert was ready, he strained her to his breast and exclaimed, "Now I am revenged! Farewell! I leave you to all the pangs of doubt and curiosity!" He then flew out of the room with an arch glance at her agitated countenance, and hurried up stairs.
She clasped her trembling hands together as the door closed on him. "O, gracious Providence!" cried she, "what am I to understand by this mystery, this joy of my cousin's? Can it be possible that the illustrious Sobieski and my contemned Constantine are the same person?" A burning blush overspread her face at the expression my which had escaped her lips.
Whilst the graces, the sweetness, the dignity of Thaddeus had captivated her notice, his sufferings, his virtues, and the mysterious interests which involved his history, in like manner had fixed her attention had awakened her esteem. From these grounds the step is short to love. "When the mind is conquered, the heart surrenders at discretion." But she knew not that she had advanced too far to retreat, until the last scene at Dundas House, by forcing her to defend Constantine against the charge of loving her, made her confess to herself how much she wished the charge were true.
Poor and lowly as he seemed, she found that her whole heart and life were wrapped in his remembrance; that his worshipped idea was her solace; her most precious property the dear treasure of her secret and sweetest felicity, It was the companion of her walks, the monitor of her actions. Whenever she planned, whenever she executed, she asked herself, how would Constantine consider this? and accordingly did she approve or condemn her conduct, for she had heard enough from Mrs. Robson to convince her that piety was the sure fountain of his virtues.
When she had left London, and so far separated from this idol of her memory, such was the impression he had stamped on her heart; he seemed ever present. The shade of Laura visited the solitude of Vaucluse; the image of Constantine haunted the walks of Somerset. The loveliness of nature, its leafy groves and verdant meadows, its blooming mornings and luxuriant sunsets, the romantic shadows of twilight or the soft glories of the moon and stars, as they pressed beauty and sentiment upon her heart, awoke it to the remembrance of Constantine; she saw his image, she felt his soul, in every object. Subtile and undefinable is that ethereal chord which unites our tenderest thought, with their chain of association!
Before this conversation, in which Pembroke mentioned the name of Constantine with so much badinage and apparent familiarity, he never heard him spoken of by Mary or his aunt without declaring a displeasure nearly amounting to anger. Hence when she considered his now so strangely altered tone, Miss Beaufort necessarily concluded that he had seen, in the person of him she most valued, the man whose public character she had often heard him admire, and who, she now doubted not, had at some former period given him some private reason for calling him his friend. Before this time, she more than once had suspected, from the opinions which Somerset occasionally repeated respecting the affairs of Poland, that he could only have acquired so accurate a knowledge of its events by having visited the country itself. She mentioned her suspicion to Mr. Loftus: he denied the fact; and she had thought no more on the subject until the present ambiguous hints of her cousin conjured up these doubts anew, and led her to suppose that if Pembroke had not disobeyed his father so far as to go to Warsaw, he must have met with the Count Sobieski in some other realm. The possibility that this young hero, of whom fame spoke so loudly, might be the mysterious Constantine, bewildered and delighted her. The more she compared what she had heard of the one with what she had witnessed in the other, the more was she reconciled to the probability of her ardent hope. Besides, she could not for a moment retain a belief that her cousin would so cruelly sport with her delicacy and peace as to excite expectations that he could not fulfil.
Agitated by a suspense which bordered on agony, with a beating heart she heard his quick step descending the stairs. The door opened, and Pembroke, flying into the room, caught up his hat. As he was darting away again, unable to restrain her impatience, Miss Beaufort with an imploring voice ejaculated his name. He turned, and displayed to her amazed sight a countenance in which no vestige of his former animation could be traced. His cheek was flushed, and his eyes shot a wild fire that struck to her heart. Unconscious what she did, she ran up to him; but Pembroke, pushing her back, exclaimed, "Don't ask me any questions, if you would not drive me to madness."