“Three days will be long enough to deaden his pain, and then he will be more reasonable and form other resolutions.”
CHAPTER XIII. A HUSBAND’S REVENGE.
Camilla lay upon a sofa in her boudoir, and listened with breathless attention to the account her beau cousin gave of the adventures of the last eight days. She listened with sparkling eyes to the witty description he gave of his duel with Lord Elliot, and declared that she found him extraordinarily brilliant. Camilla was indeed proud of her handsome lover. Kindar explained minutely how he had compelled Lord Elliot, who for a long time avoided and fled from him, to fight a duel with him. How he forced him on his knees to acknowledge that he had done his wife injustice, and to apologize for the insult he had offered to Kindar, in charging him with being the lover of his pure and virtuous wile.
“And he did this?” cried Camilla; “he knelt before you and begged your pardon?”
“Yes, he knelt before me, and begged my pardon.”
“Then he is even more pitiful than I thought him,” said Camilla, “and I am justified before the whole world in despising him. Nothing can be more contemptible than to beg pardon rather than fight a duel, to kneel to a man to save one’s miserable life. I am a woman, but I would scorn such cowardice. I would despise the man I loved most fondly if he were guilty of such an act of shame.”
Camilla was much excited; she did not notice how Kindar started, turned pale, and fixed his eyes on the floor. She was so charmed with the courage of her beau cousin that she could think of nothing else. Even her frivolous nature had this feminine instinct—she prized personal daring and courage in a man more than all other things; of strength of mind she knew nothing, and therefore she could not appreciate it, but she demanded courage, dignity, and strength of physique. She laid her hands upon her cousin with cordial approbation, and gazed lovingly at him.
“You are as beautiful as a hero and a demigod, and it seems to me I never loved you so fondly as at this moment, when you stand before me as the victor over my cowardly husband. Ah, I wish I could have witnessed that scene; you proud and grand, and he lying trembling like this miserable windspiel at your feet, repeating the words of retraction and repentance which you dictated.”
“It was indeed worth seeing,” said Kindar; “but let us speak now of something more important, dear Camilla. You must leave Berlin to-day, and for a few weeks at least withdraw to your estate, till the violence of the storm has blown over. It is, of course, most agreeable and flattering to me to have my name coupled with that of so lovely and charming a woman—to be looked upon with jealousy and alarm by the cowardly husbands of Berlin. It will not, however, be agreeable to you to be torn to pieces by slanderous tongues. Every old maid, every prude, and every hypocritical coquette (and of such base elements the feminine world is composed), will find this a happy occasion to exalt her own modesty and virtue, and denounce and condemn you.”