“Oh, thank you!” he returned, encouraged by her kind words, and without heeding the last clause. “But ’tis not for that I care. What makes me regret the war is the loss of friendships. And,” he added, speaking in a lower tone, but more impressively, “the fear of having lost yours.”
“But you have not, sir—so much as it is worth. My father was angry in those days; so were we all. But, then, you were not to blame—we could not think that, did not—knowing you acted under orders.”
“Ah! never had I an order to execute so much against my wish, never one with such disagreeable consequences, separating me so long from—”
He hesitated to say whom or what. But, mistaking her look of simple inquiry for one of a more interested nature, he completed the speech with one other word—“yourself.”
She started, looking a little confused, but remained silent; which he, again misinterpreting, took as a permission to go on, which he did, with increased fervour.
“Yes, Mistress Vaga! that was my chief regret, never out of my mind for a moment since. Many the night on watch and guard have I thought of you. Sleepless they would have been, even without duty to keep me awake.”
“But why all this, sir? Why should I be a cause to keep you awake?”
She spoke in a tone that suddenly checked and chilled him. For the question recalled a fact he seemed to overlook, or had forgotten—that Vaga Powell had never acknowledged him in the light of a lover; never before given him permission to address words to her such as he was now speaking.
“Ah!” he answered, with a disappointed air, “if you do not know why, ’tis not much use my telling you.” Then adding, with a sigh, “I had hopes you would have understood me.”
She did understand him perfectly; knew his aspirations and their hopelessness. And never was she less inclined to give heed to them than at that moment. For close by she saw her cousin Clarisse by the side of his cousin Eustace, the two standing up as partners for a dance about to begin.