“I wish I could think so,” said his patron; “but I have a little more knowledge of the world than you, Zabra, and I know something more of the disposition of such men. As long as he lives they will consider themselves insecure. They can know no peace save in his death; and I am convinced that they will use every exertion to accomplish it. I hope I may be enabled to return in time to frustrate their intentions. I should like nothing better than to expose their machinations, and to punish them in an appropriate manner; and if the people exist in the same state of feeling as when my father last wrote, I will show them something they little expect to see. My father’s friends are almost innumerable in Columbus, and are always ready with hand and heart to serve him whenever he will give the word, which he is always exceedingly loth to give; and I think I may say that my friends in the metropolis are neither despicable in number nor in influence, and are as eager to befriend me in time of need; and I shall be quite as eager to accept their services. I remember the times when I have been exercising my regiment, the devotion that was displayed by both officers and men; but this I am well aware was owing to their admiration of my father’s virtues. Of them I am secure. My fondness for military exercises made me labour to perfect in discipline the troops I commanded, and they are now as effective a body of men as ever entered a field of battle. They will perform good service wherever they go. The national guard is another powerful engine to be employed on such an occasion. In the metropolis alone they amount in number to about twenty thousand; and they are devotedly attached to my father. If there exist but a sufficient cause I know that I have only to present myself amongst them, to induce them to follow me wherever I choose to lead.”
“I trust you will have no occasion for their services,” said his companion; “it is my belief that on our return we shall find every thing in the most comfortable state, and all parties satisfied with each other. Your military dreams will then be completely disappointed, and you will be under the painful necessity of making up your mind to share the well-earned honours of your father, and partake of a perfect state of happiness with Eureka.”
“Ah, Eureka!” exclaimed the young merchant with passionate emphasis; “how rejoiced I shall be to return to her! I often find myself inquiring into the possibility of a change in her disposition towards me.”
“That can never be, Oriel;” observed the other.
“I have the fullest confidence in her fidelity, but sometimes I find an apprehension intrude without knowing what produced it;” said his companion. “There are no such self-tormentors as your true lovers; and although I should be among the first to laugh at the suffering they give themselves, I must acknowledge that on more than one occasion I have endured a state of feeling which was any thing but satisfactory.”
“By what was it occasioned?” inquired Zabra.
“Merely from my ignorance of the motives which have induced her to deny me any communication with her till my return;” answered Oriel.
“You would not condemn her if you knew what made such a denial necessary;” remarked his young friend.
“Very probably not: but the mischief of it is, I do not know;” said Master Porphyry. “Any thing in the shape of a mystery annoys me amazingly, and this behaviour of hers appears to me most mysterious and unaccountable. I think between lovers the most perfect sincerity should exist. There should be no room left for doubt or suspicion. But in the generality of attachments you will find much more deception than sincerity. In the affections of youth there is an earnestness which is the most natural and convincing that can be conceived; but as the heart grows older, it gradually loses all this admirable freshness and purity, and in a few short years it has recourse to artifices and disguises without number. I detest deceit. I cannot imagine Eureka deceitful. I hope never to find her so. To the truly devoted—to one who finds no enjoyment like that which proceeds from honoring his adored as the truest, the purest, and the best, there can be nothing so revolting as the discovery that she whom he worships as one so pre-eminent in goodness is the habitual practiser of contemptible deceits, hides all her actions under a cloak of elaborate artifices, and lives in a spider-like existence, spinning a dirty web to hide herself and betray her victims.”
“Eureka is of a very different character;” observed Zabra, who during the preceding observations had appeared exceedingly confused. “She has not deceived you in any thing which it was requisite for you to know. She detests artifice as much as you do. But there are always some things which the most sincere may find it necessary to conceal. The truth cannot be spoken at all times.”