"My mother wishes to speak with you. But, perhaps, had she known the Marquis was here, she would not desire you to leave him. God bless you, Marquis!" cried he, addressing him with agitated earnestness; "Be kind to my Otteline; for, when you are married, I shall never see her more."
With the last words, she tore her eyes from his face, and threw herself into the bosom of the Countess.—Otteline looked her adieu to her lover, as in a tumult of undescribable disorder he hurried out of the room.
CHAP. III.
Though Ripperda had made it a point with the Empress, that there should be no public intimation given of the proposed marriage of her favourite with his son, until the Queen's consent should arrive; it is probable Her Majesty might have sent it abroad by a private whisper, had she not seen the prudence of not stimulating the ill offices of the Princess de Waradin, and others, by any hint that the heir they courted for their daughters was promised to their proudest enemy.
When Elizabeth appeared to grant this silence as a favour, she insisted that it should not deter Louis from making his daily visits at the Altheim apartments; it was a respect due to the amiable forbearance of his future bride; and it should always be in the presence of one of her confidential ladies, who was also a friend of the Countess.
Louis had now abandoned himself to his fate. But he had hardly given full sway to compulsive duty, and to the pleasing credulity that was re-awakened by compassion, before a thousand circumstances arose, to bid all his former repugnance return. The veil of imagination had been too forcibly rent from his eyes, ever to pass again between him and the object of his past idolatry. Unblinded by its delusions, every succeeding day shewed him clearer views of a character she vainly sought to disguise in assumed sentiment and delicacy. He perceived that her defects were not merely those of a perverting education, but of a radically warped mind. She had no spontaneous taste for moral greatness. Grandeur was her object; but it was that of station, of splendour, of dictating power. But still she loved him! loved him with a devotion, a fondness, a bewitching fascination, that, at times, made him almost forget she was not the perfection that might have been the mistress of his soul. The beautiful deception never lasted many minutes; and his heart sighed for its partner, with a sterile consciousness that spoke of desolation, and dreariness, and solitude, through the whole of his after-life.
In moments like these, how often has a frequent quotation of his Pastor-Uncle occurred to him! "He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together. Such proof of love is conspiracy, not friendship!"
In the midst of this banishment of his hopes, from ever knowing the sweets of domestic comfort again, he received large packets from the dear home, where his best instructor presided, and where perfect happiness dwelt with humility and innocence. The counsel of the venerable man strengthened him in every disinterested rule of life; but the letters of his aunt, and his cousins, made his yearning heart overflow with rebellious regrets. The spirit of virtue and of tenderness breathed through every eloquent line that dropped from the pen of Cornelia.