“Forgive, forgive the vain triumph of a being intoxicated by your pity<—transported by your condescension.”
“Triumph!” repeated Glorvina, in an accent tenderly reproachful, yet accompanied by a look proudly indignant—“Triumph!”
How I cursed the coxcomical expression in my heart, while I fell at her feet, and kissing the hem of her robe, without daring to touch the hand I had relinquished, said, “Does this look like triumph, Glorvina?” Glorvina turned towards me a face in which all the witcheries of her sex were blended—playful fondness, affected anger, animated tenderness, and soul-dissolving languishment. Oh! she should not have looked thus, or I should have been more or less than man.
With a glance of undeniable supplication, she released herself from that glowing fold, which could have pressed her forever to a heart where she must forever reign unrivalled. I saw she wished I should think her very angry, and another pardon was to be solicited, for the transient indulgence of that passionate impulse her own seducing looks had called into existence. The pardon, after some little pouting playfulness, was granted, and I was suffered to lead her to that Gothic sofa where our first tete-a-tete had taken place; and partly by artifice, partly by entreaty, I drew from her the little history of the treasured snow-drops, and read from her eloquent eyes more than her bashful lip would dare to express.
Thus, like the assymtotes of a hyperbola, without absolutely rushing into contact, we are, by a sweet impulsion, gradually approximating closer and closer towards each other.
Ah! my dear friend, this is the golden age of love; and I sometimes think, with the refined Weiland, in certain degree, with the first kiss—mine, therefore, is now in its climacteric.
The impetuosity with which I rush on every subject that touches her, often frustrates the intention with which I sit down to address you. I left this letter behind me unfinished, for the purpose of filling it up, on my return, with answers to those I expected to receive from you. The arguments which your friendly foresight and prudent solicitude have furnished you, are precisely such as the understanding cannot refute, nor the heart subscribe to.
You say my wife she cannot be—and my mistress! perish the thought! What! I repay the generosity of the father by the destruction of the child! I steal this angelic being from the peaceful security of her native shades, with all her ardent, tender feelings thick upon her: I,
‘“Crop this fair rose, and rifle all its sweetness!”
No; you do me but common justice when you say, that though you have sometimes known me affect the character of a libertine, yet never, even for a moment, have you known me forfeit that of a man of honour. I would not be understood to speak in the mere commonplace worldly acceptation of the word, but literally, according to the text of moral and divine laws.