"No," replied Eugene, sadly, "for I am too truly your friend to deceive you, Max. I have loved, but my love was unfortunate; and the wound it has made in my heart is too painful to be probed. Dear friend, let us speak of it nevermore!"
"On the contrary, let us speak of it together without reserve. A hero like Eugene, who has faced death, and so often wrested victory from his enemies, can surely contemplate such a wound as Cupid's dart inflicts upon a man! But tell me, what are unfortunate loves? mine have all been crowned with myrtle, and smothered in roses."
Eugene was silent for a time; then raising his large, melancholy eyes, till they rested affectionately upon the bright, laughing countenance of his friend, he spoke: "I can well believe that you know nothing of the pangs inflicted by unhappy love; for you are handsome, distinguished, and gifted. I, who am none of these, can tell you what it is to love adversely. It is to love with passion; to be parted from the object of your love; and not to know whether she, like you, is constant to her vows, and suffers from your absence, as you do from hers. Pray Heaven that love may never come to you in such a shape as this."
"No danger of me contracting the malady," replied Max; "I am constitutionally incapable of receiving it. I pluck the fruit or flower that grows nearest, never suffering my imagination to run away with my longings. But never mind me and my sybaritic interpretations of the tender passion. Are your woes irremediable? Is the lady married?"
"In the eyes of the world she is."
"But not in the eyes of God, you would say. Then her marriage must have been compulsory or fraudulent?"
"It was fraudulent."
"Then hie we to the pope for justice! His holiness will not refuse it to such a brave crusader as you, and I myself will be your advocate. Give me pen and paper. I will write at once, send your signature and mine to the petition, and dispatch it by a courier this very day; and then the world will see whether we, who stormed Buda, may not storm adverse fortune also."
"Dear friend, neither the pope nor you can storm my adverse fortunes. I must hear from my beloved whether she is true to me before I take one step to possess myself of her. For three years I have waited in vain for her summons; and yet my longing arms are outstretched to clasp her, and never while I live will they encircle the form of another!"
"Nay—these are the enthusiastic ravings of recent disappointment. For a few years longer you may sorrow for your first love; but oblivion will come, all in good time, and you will end by loving some other woman as deserving as your absent mistress, and more attainable. After all, ambition, not love, is the business of life; and Cytherea's groves grow not a flower that can compare with the laurels which fame places on the brow of the conqueror. It is well for me that I am ten years your senior, else I should have been obliged to come behind you, Eugene, and pick up your cast-off leaves."