"Ah, sister of my soul!" cried he, "I could fly with thee into the bosom of paradise! Here is all celestial purity, all divine aspirations! and I wished to wander from such a heaven! I longed to busy myself in the ambitious turmoil of the world! I am in that world; and, what is my achievement? I find myself chained to the foot of a woman, my noble Cornelia would despise! I dare not confess to those who love and honour me, so degrading a disappointment of their hopes."
He turned to the gentle accents of his sweet Alice, breathed in a letter which had been wet with her grateful tears. Don Ferdinand had complied with her petition. He had written to her mother, and avowed his love for her daughter. But throwing himself upon her pity, he implored her not to betray him to his father; and to assure her that he meant nothing disobedient to him, nothing clandestine to her in the demand, he released Alice from every vow, only reserving one claim on her compassion; to be allowed, at some future day, to throw himself at her feet; should the issue of certain circumstances, which still gave him the privilege to hope, hereafter induce his father to consent to his happiness.
Alice added that her mother had written to Don Ferdinand, that she pardoned what had passed, in consideration of the amplitude of the restitution; that she should preserve his blameable conduct from his father's eye, since it was repented of, and relinquished; but, that he must not suppose she yielded any encouragement to the continuance of his attachment for her daughter, as she desired, that here all correspondence must cease.
"But," added Alice, "I know he will be true to what he has written; and I know I shall always love him dearer, for having taken that dreadful load from my heart. I am therefore quite sure I shall be content to await his father's consent, should it not come these many years. If you knew how happy I am now, since I can lift up my eyes in my dear mother's presence, and no longer feel ashamed at being pressed to the affectionate bosom of my blameless sister; you would be ready to pour as many tears of joy over the welcome of the little strayed lamb, as your kind heart shed floods of sorrow that melancholy night, when you found her so sadly wandered from her fold! Oh, my Louis, shall my gratitude to you ever find words to express it?"
Mrs. Coningsby's letter was not less energetic in thanks to her nephew for the judicious advice he had given to her almost infant Alice; and for the activity of his exertions, to bring it to effect.
Louis smiled with glistening eyes, over these letters; for he was yet to learn the science of forgetting his own privations, in the fullness of others. The comparison now only aggravated the pangs in his breast; and rising from meditations that subdued, agitated, and maddened him, he rushed into crowds for that dissipation of thought he vainly sought in the exercises of study, or the fulfilment of his official duties.
Count Koninseg had lately introduced him to a house, in which he moved about at perfect ease, and met with every gratification to put his usual indifference to gay society, to the test. It was the abode of the Count d'Ettrees, a French adventurer of rank, whose wife and sister formed an attraction of wit and beauty, that rivalled every other assembly in Vienna. Under their magic auspices, every amusement was presented that capricious fancy could desire or devise; and all lavished with a splendor of luxury, and an elegance of taste, which must soon have been exhausted, had not the fountain as it flowed returned by another channel to its native bed. Count d'Ettrees drew a revenue from that spirit for play, which his display of means excited in his guests.
Louis could never be induced to touch a card, or the dice-box, despising them both as sordid and senseless in principle; but found ample entertainment in the conversations of, indeed, an epitomised world. In these assemblies he saw persons from all countries and of all parties; but they were the chosen of all. For, to make the attraction the greater, so select was the Count in the rank and pretensions of those whom he admitted, it was deemed the highest proof of consequence, and of being un bel esprit, to be seen in this privileged circle. The Countess Claudine and her sister-in-law, Angelique d'Ettrees. were ostensibly women of character, and really women of talent. But, while all around shewed a gorgeous pageant of amusement, wit, and genius; ruin lurked in the rooms, dedicated to play; infidelity and pride animated the philosophic colonade; poetry and Voltaire, Rousseau and bewildering sentiment, discoursed alike with talents, or with beauty; and vice sapped the unwary footstep where-ever it trod.
At present, Louis was too self-absorbed by the struggles within him, to look deep into what was passing around him. It was sufficient for him that the varying intellectual enjoyments of the place, wrested him from his thoughts; and he gave himself up to all their power with a desperate avidity. He found his mind roused and exercised, by discussions with men of genius; he was delighted with the brilliant wit of the women, and the graceful frankness of their manners; and, perhaps, he was unconsciously propitiated by the indirect flattery which was offered to himself, by the Countess and her sister, and which, being paid to his talents alone, he received without suspicion.
One evening, while he was thus engaged, he observed de Patinos and Duke Wharton enter together. It was the first time he had seen the Duke in the hotel d'Ettrees. The Spaniard descried Louis at the same instant, as he sat between the Countess and her sister Angelique. De Patinos drew his arm almost immediately from Wharton, and approached the group; but when near, he stopped, and turned away, casting a furious look at Ma'amselle d'Ettrees. She soon left her seat, and Louis afterwards saw her and the Spaniard in close conversation, while they, at times, turned round and glanced at him, as if he were the object of their discourse. De Patinos seemed very sullen, and Angelique very earnest. Soon after they parted, with a sarcastic laugh from the Spaniard, and Ma'amselle mingled with the crowd.