Here Westwood took breath. The sun was now almost set. The prairie was still and cool; the heavy dews were beginning to fall; the shadows of the green and flowered undulations filled the hollows, like a rising tide; the headland, seen at first so far and small, was growing gradually large and near; and the horses moved at a quicker pace. Westwood lighted his cigar, drew a few whiffs, and proceeded.
"We had a voyage of eleven days. But to me an immense amount of experience was crowded into that brief period. The fine exhilaration of the start,--the breeze gradually increasing to a gale; then horrible sea-sickness, home-sickness, love-sickness; after which, the weather which sailors love, games, gayety, and flirtation. There is no such social freedom to be enjoyed anywhere as on board an ocean steamer. The breaking-up of old associations, the opening of a fresh existence, the necessity of new relationships,--this fuses the crust of conventionality, quickens the springs of life, and renders character sympathetic and fluent. The past is easily put away; we become plastic to new influences; we are delighted at the discovery of unexpected affinities, and astonished to find in ourselves so much wit, eloquence, and fine susceptibility, which we did not before dream we possessed.
"This freedom is especially provocative of flirtation. We see each fair brow touched with a halo whose colors are the reflection of our own beautiful dreams. Loveliness is ten-fold more lovely, bathed in this atmosphere of romance; and manhood is invested with ideal graces. The love within us rushes, with swift, sweet heart-beats, to meet the love responsive in some other. Don't think I am now artfully preparing your mind to excuse what I am about to confess. Take these things into consideration, if you will; then think as you please of the weakness and wild impulse with which I fell in love with----
"We will call her Flora. The most superb, captivating creature that ever ensnared the hearts of the sons of Adam. A fine olive complexion; magnificent dark auburn hair; eyes full of fire and softness; lips that could pout or smile with incomparable fascination; a figure of surprising symmetry, just voluptuous enough. But, after all, her great power lay in her freedom from all affectation and conventionality,--in her spontaneity, her free, sparkling, and vivacious manners. She was the most daring and dazzling of women, without ever appearing immodest or repulsive. She walked with such proud, secure steps over the commonly accepted barriers of social intercourse, that even those who blamed her and pretended to be shocked were compelled to admire. She was the belle, the Juno, of the saloon, the supreme ornament of the upper deck. Just twenty,--not without wit and culture,--full of poetry and enthusiasm. Do you blame me?"
"Not a whit," I said; "but for Margaret"----
"Ah, Margaret!" said Westwood, with a sigh. "But, you see, I had given her up. And when one love is lost, there sink such awful chasms into the soul, that, though they cannot be filled, we must at least bridge them over with a new affection. The number of marriages built in this way, upon false foundations of hollowness and despair, is incomputable. We talk of jilted lovers and disappointed girls marrying 'out of spite.' No doubt, such petty feeling hurries forward many premature matches. But it is the heart, left shaken, unsupported, wretchedly sinking, which reaches out its feelers for sympathy, catches at the first penetrable point, and clings like a helpless vine to the sunny-sided wall of the nearest consolation. If you wish to marry a girl and can't, and are weak enough to desire her still, this is what you should do: get some capable man to jilt her. Then seize your chance. All the affections which have gone out to him, unmet, ready to droop, quivering with the painful, hungry instinct to grasp some object, may possibly lay hold of you. Let the world sneer; but God pity such natures, which lack the faith and fortitude to live and die true to their best love!
"Out of my own mouth do I condemn myself? Very well, I condemn myself; peccavi! I If I had ever loved Margaret, then I did not love Flora. The same heart cannot find its counterpart indifferently in two such opposites. What charmed me in one was her purity, softness, and depth of soul. What fascinated me in the other was her bloom, beauty, and passion. Which was the true sympathy?
"I did not stop to ask that question when it was most important that it should be seriously considered. I rushed into the crowd of competitors for Flora's smiles, and distanced them all. I was pleased and proud that she took no pains to conceal her preference for me. We played chess; we read poetry out of the same book; we ate at the same table; we sat and watched the sea together, for hours, in those clear, bright days; we promenaded the deck at sunset, her hand upon my arm, her lips forever turning up tenderly towards me, her eyes pouring their passion into me. Then those glorious nights, when the ocean was a vast, wild, fluctuating stream, flashing and sparkling about the ship, spanned with a quivering bridge of splendor on one side, and rolling off into awful darkness and mystery, on the other; when the moon seemed swinging among the shrouds like a ball of white fire; when the few ships went by like silent ghosts; and Flora and I, in a long trance of happiness, kept the deck, heedless of the throng of promenaders, forgetful of the past, reckless of the future, aware only of our own romance, and the richness of the present hour.
"Joseph, my travelling-companion, looked on, and wrote letters. He showed me one of these, addressed to a friend of Margaret's. In it he extolled Flora's beauty, piquancy, and supremacy; related how she made all the women jealous and all the men mad; and hinted at my triumph. I knew that that letter would meet Margaret's eyes, and was vain enough to be pleased.
"At last, one morning, at daybreak, I went on deck, and saw the shores of England. Only a few days before, we had left America behind us, brown and leafless, just emerging from the long gloom of winter; and now the slopes of another world arose green and inviting in the flush of spring. There was a bracing breeze; the dingy waters of the Mersey rolled up in wreaths of beauty; the fleets of ships, steamers, sloops, lighters, pilot-boats, bounding over the waves, meeting, tacking, plunging, swaying gracefully under the full-swelling canvas, presented a picture of wonderful animation; and the mingling hues of sunshine and mist hung over all. I paced the deck, solemnly joyful, swift thoughts pulsing through me of a dim far-off Margaret, of a near radiant Flora, of hope and happiness superior to fate. It was one of those times when the excited soul transfigures the world, and we marvel how we could ever succumb to a transient sorrow while the whole universe blooms, and an infinite future waits to open for us its doors of wonder and joy.