“Nay,” said Lady Geraldine, “do not look so respectfully miserable; if you have any other engagements, you have only to say so: or if you cannot speak you may bow: a bow, you know, is an answer to every thing. And here is my Lord Glenthorn ready to supply your place: pray, do not let me detain you prisoner. You shall not a second time say, I can’t get out.”
Devereux made no further effort to escape, but took the book and his dangerous seat. He remained with us, contrary to his custom, the whole evening. Afterwards, as if he felt that some apology was necessary to me for the pleasure in which he had indulged himself, “Perhaps, my lord,” said he, “another man in my situation, and with my feelings, would think it necessary to retreat, and prudent to secure his safety by flight; but flight is unworthy of him who can combat and conquer: the man who is sure of himself does not skulk away to avoid danger, but advances to meet it, armed secure in honesty.”
This proud and rash security in his own courage, strength of mind, and integrity, was the only fault of Cecil Devereux. He never prayed not to be led into temptation, he thought himself so sure of avoiding evil. Unconscious of his danger, even though his disease was at its height, he now braved it most imprudently: he was certain that he should never pass the bounds of friendship; he had proved this to himself, and was satisfied: he told me that he could with indifference, nay, with pleasure, see Lady Geraldine mine. In the mean time, upon the same principle that he deemed flight inglorious, he was proud to expose himself to the full force of Love’s artillery. He was with us now every day, and almost all day, and Lady Geraldine was more charming than ever. The week was fixed for her departure. Still I could not decide. I understood that her ladyship would pass the ensuing winter in Dublin, where she would probably meet with new adorers; and even if Mr. Devereux should not succeed, some adventurous knight might win and wear the prize. This was an alarming thought. It almost decided me to hazard the fatal declaration; but then I recollected that I might follow her ladyship to town the next winter, and that if the impression did not, as might be hoped, wear off during the intervening autumn, it would be time enough to commit myself when I should meet my fair one in Dublin. This was at last my fixed resolution. Respited from the agonies of doubt, I now waited very tranquilly for that moment to which most lovers look forward with horror, the moment of separation. I was sensible that I had accustomed myself to think about this lady so much, that I had gradually identified my existence with hers, and I thus found my spirit of animation much increased. I dreaded the departure of Lady Geraldine less than the return of ennui.
In this frame of mind I was walking one morning in the pleasure grounds with Lady Geraldine, when a slight accident made me act in direct contradiction to all my resolutions, and, I think, inconsistently with my character. But such is the nature of man! and I was doomed to make a fool of myself, even in the very temple of Minerva. Among the various ornamental buildings in the grounds at Ormsby Villa, there was a temple dedicated to this goddess, from which issued a troop of hoyden young ladies, headed by the widow O’Connor and Lady Kilrush, all calling to us to come and look at some charming discovery which they had just made in the temple of Minerva. Thither we proceeded, accompanied by the merry troop. We found in the temple only a poetical inscription of Lady Kilrush’s, pompously engraved on a fine marble tablet. We read the lines with all the attention usually paid to a lady’s poetry in the presence of the poetess. Lady Geraldine and I turned to pay some compliments on the performance, when we found that Lady Kilrush and all her companions were gone.
“Gone! all gone!” said Lady Geraldine; “and there they are, making their way very fast down to the temple of Folly! Lady Kilrush, you know, is so ba-a-ashful, she could not possibly stay to receive nos hommages. I love to laugh at affectation. Call them back, do, my lord, and you shall see the fair author go through all the evolutions of mock humility, and end by yielding quietly to the notion that she is the tenth Muse. But run, my lord, or they will be out of our reach.”
I never was seen to run on any occasion; but to obey Lady Geraldine I walked as fast as I could to the door, and, to my surprise, found it fastened.
“Locked, I declare! Some of the witty tricks of the widow O’Connor, or the hoyden Miss Callwells!”
“How I hate hoydens!” cried Lady Geraldine: “but let us take patience; they will be back presently. If young ladies must perform practical jokes, because quizzing is the fashion, I wish they would devise something new. This locking-up is so stale a jest. To be sure it has lately to boast the authority of high rank in successful practice: but these bungling imitators never distinguish between cases the most dissimilar imaginable. Silly creatures! We have only to be wise and patient.”
Her ladyship sat down to re-peruse the tablet. I never saw her look so beautiful.—The dignified composure of her manner charmed me; it was so unlike the paltry affectation of some of the fashionable ladies by whom I had been disgusted. I recollected the precedent to which she alluded. I recollected that the locking-up ended in matrimony; and as Lady Geraldine made some remarks upon the verses, I suppose my answers showed my absence of mind.
“Why so grave, my lord? why so absent? I assure you I do not suspect your lordship of having any hand in this vulgar manoeuvre. I acquit you honourably; therefore you need not stand any longer like a criminal.”