"Ah! the offer of marriage is then the condition of your regard, and love is to follow, not precede, the settlements, I' faith, ladies are very prudent in these days; and virtue and goodness the new names for fortune and lands. Beshrew me, if I had not deemed you to be made of other metal than the common herd. But whatever be the composition of your heart, Constance Sherwood, be it hard as the gold you set so much store on, or, like wax, apt to receive each day some new impress, I will have it; yea, and keep it for my own. No rich fool shall steal it from me."
"Hubert Rookwood," I cried in anger, "dare not so to speak of one whose merit is as superior to thine as the sun outshines a torchlight."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, turning pale with rage, "if I thought thou didst love him!" and clenched his hand with a terrible gesture, and ground his teeth. "But 'tis impossible," he added bitterly smiling. "As soon would I believe Titania verily to doat on the ass's head as for thee to love Basil!"
"Oh!" I indignantly replied, "you do almost constrain me to avow that which no maiden should, unasked, confess. Do you think, sir, that learning and scholarship, and the poor show of wit that lies in a ready tongue, should outweigh honor, courage, and kindliness of heart? Think you that more respect should be paid to one who can speak, and write also, if you will, fair sounding words, than to him who in his daily doings shows forth such nobleness as others only inculcate, and God only knoweth if ever they practise it?"
"Lady!" he exclaimed, "I have served you long; sustained torments in your presence; endured griefs in your absence; pining thoughts in the day, and anguished dreams in the night; jealousies often in times past, and now—"
He drew in his breath; and then not so much speaking the word "despair" as with a smothered vehemence uttering it, he concluded his vehement address.
I was so shaken by his speech that I remained silent: for if I had spoken I must needs have wept. Holding my head with both hands, and so shielding my eyes from the sight of his pale convulsed face, I sat like one transfixed. Then he again: "These be not times, Mistress Sherwood, for women to act as you have done; to lift a man's heart one while to an earthly heaven, and then, without so much as a thought, to cast him into a hellish sea of woes. These be the dealings which drive men to desperation; to attempt things contrary to their own minds, to religion, and to honesty; to courses once abhorred—"
His violence wrung my heart then with so keen a remorse that I cried out, "I cry you mercy, Master Rookwood, if I have dealt thus with you; indeed I thought not to do it. I pray you forgive me, if unwittingly, albeit peradventure in a heedless manner, I have done you so much wrong as your words do charge me with." And then tears I could not stay began to flow; and for awhile no talk ensued. But after a little time he spoke in a voice so changed and dissimilar in manner, that I looked up wholly amazed.
"Sweet Constance," he said, "I have played the fool in my customable fashion, and by such pretended slanders of one I should rather incline to commend beyond his deserts, if that were possible, than to give him vile terms, have sought—I cry you [{45}] mercy for it—to discover your sentiments, and feigned a resentment and a passion which indeed has proved an excellent piece of acting, if I judge by your tears. I pray you pardon and forget my brotherly device. If you love Basil—as I misdoubt not he loves you—where shall a more suitable match be found, or one which every one must needs so much approve? Marry, sweet lady; I will be his best man when he doth ride to church with you, and cry 'Amen' more loudly than the clerk. So now dart no more vengeful lightnings from thine eyes, sweet one; and wipe away the pearly drops my unmannerly jesting hath caused to flow. I would not Basil had wedded a lady in love with his pelf, not with himself."
"I detest tricks," I cried, "and such feigning as you do confess to. I would I had not answered one word of your false discourse."