"An imposing fable," he replied, "wanting only a woman's faith to give it substance and reality."
I was rising to put an end to this unprofitable and distasteful conversation, when Marian joined us. My disturbed manner plainly annoyed her, and she evidently suspected its cause; for she addressed Mr. Gaston in German quite earnestly. Soon turning to me he said, "Pray, excuse me, Miss Heartly; I was not aware that you were a Catholic. I know your people feel most keenly what they profess. Of course you have already stamped me a condemned heretic."
"It is not for me to pass judgment on you," I replied; "and if I did, my opinion could be of very little value."
"Come, come!" said Marian, "this is a most unapt and gloomy subject for my marriage eve; and the sun, too, has gone down sullenly. I hope there is nothing prophetic in all this."
"What! growing serious now?" I said, as I drew her arm within mine, and we went to look for the fiftieth time at the final arrangements for the morrow's festivities.
I could not, however, throw off the feeling of uneasiness that my interview with Mr. Gaston had left. He had a way of cheapening one, so that, without knowing why, you fell immeasurably in your own estimation. This is never a comfortable condition to find one's self in, and it takes a good deal of nice logic to bring one back to one's normal state.
Perhaps it was the loftiness of his style that awed me; for he had a magnificent way of carelessly throwing the world behind him and walking forth in a sort of solitary dignity. "His manners are courtly," Marian's aunt said, and certainly they possessed all the cold stiffness that characterized her particular circle; still, I felt I had no real grounds for this feeling of distrust and aversion to Mr. Gaston, and I began to think it was rather ungenerous to hold him in so unfavorable a light. I could not shake off, however, an undefined dread of the approaching marriage. The apathy and indifference which had always been peculiar to my young friend did not forsake her even now, when apparently on the very threshold of happiness. I thought that intensity of feeling perhaps kept her thus silent, for overpowering happiness has this effect sometimes. The delusion was, however, speedily dispelled.
That night a sealed chapter in Marian's life was laid open to me, and I saw her as I had never seen or thought of her before.
After locking the chamber-door, she seated herself by my side, and said, "This is the first time in my life that I have known perfect freedom; I mean a liberty to do and say what I like with a feeling of security.
"You remember the 'Greek Slave.' Well, I am not unlike that delicate girl chained in the market-place. Every inclination of my heart has been chained down and locked, and my aunt has kept the key.