“And how many women, think you, are capable of feeling such disinterested passion?”
“More, by thousands, than there are men who merit it,” answered Zarah. “Alas! how often do you see the female, pale, and wretched, and degraded, still following with patient constancy the footsteps of some predominating tyrant, and submitting to all his injustice with the endurance of a faithful and misused spaniel, which prizes a look from his master, though the surliest groom that ever disgraced humanity, more than all the pleasure which the world besides can furnish him? Think what such would be to one who merited and repaid her devotion.”
“Perhaps the very reverse,” said the Duke; “and for your simile, I can see little resemblance. I cannot charge my spaniel with any perfidy; but for my mistresses—to confess truth, I must always be in a cursed hurry if I would have the credit of changing them before they leave me.”
“And they serve you but rightly, my lord,” answered the lady; “for what are you?—Nay, frown not; for you must hear the truth for once. Nature has done its part, and made a fair outside, and courtly education hath added its share. You are noble, it is the accident of birth—handsome, it is the caprice of Nature—generous, because to give is more easy than to refuse—well-apparelled, it is to the credit of your tailor—well-natured in the main, because you have youth and health—brave, because to be otherwise were to be degraded—and witty, because you cannot help it.”
The Duke darted a glance on one of the large mirrors. “Noble, and handsome, and court-like, generous, well-attired, good-humoured, brave, and witty!—You allow me more, madam, than I have the slightest pretension to, and surely enough to make my way, at some point at least, to female favour.”
“I have neither allowed you a heart nor a head,” said Zarah calmly.—“Nay, never redden as if you would fly at me. I say not but nature may have given you both; but folly has confounded the one, and selfishness perverted the other. The man whom I call deserving the name is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others, rather than himself,—whose high purpose is adopted on just principles, and never abandoned while heaven or earth affords means of accomplishing it. He is one who will neither seek an indirect advantage by a specious road, nor take an evil path to gain a real good purpose. Such a man were one for whom a woman’s heart should beat constant while he breathes, and break when he dies.”
She spoke with so much energy that the water sparkled in her eyes, and her cheek coloured with the vehemence of her feelings.
“You speak,” said the Duke, “as if you had yourself a heart which could pay the full tribute to the merit which you describe so warmly.”
“And have I not?” said she, laying her hand on her bosom. “Here beats one that would bear me out in what I have said, whether in life or in death.”
“Were it in my power,” said the Duke, who began to get farther interested in his visitor than he could at first have thought possible—“Were it in my power to deserve such faithful attachment, methinks it should be my care to requite it.”