As I crouched behind the hedge, I heard voices approaching on the other side of it. At last fortune had befriended me. The person speaking at the moment was Miss Jillgall; and the person who answered her was Philip.
“I am afraid, dear Mr. Philip, you don’t quite understand my sweet Euneece. Honorable, high minded, delicate in her feelings, and, oh, so unselfish! I don’t want to alarm you, but when she hears you have been deceiving Helena—”
“Upon my word, Miss Jillgall, you are so provoking! I have not been deceiving Helena. Haven’t I told you what discouraging answers I got, when I went to see the Governor? Haven’t I shown you Eunice’s reply to my letter? You can’t have forgotten it already?”
“Oh, yes, I have. Why should I remember it? Don’t I know poor Euneece was in your mind, all the time?”
“You’re wrong again! Eunice was not in my mind all the time. I was hurt—I was offended by the cruel manner in which she had treated me. And what was the consequence? So far was I from deceiving Helena—she rose in my estimation by comparison with her sister.”
“Oh, come, come, Mr. Philip! that won’t do. Helena rising in anybody’s estimation? Ha! ha! ha!”
“Laugh as much as you like, Miss Jillgall, you won’t laugh away the facts. Helena loved me; Helena was true to me. Don’t be hard on a poor fellow who is half distracted. What a man finds he can do on one day, he finds he can’t do on another. Try to understand that a change does sometimes come over one’s feelings.”
“Bless my soul, Mr. Philip, that’s just what I have been understanding all the time! I know your mind as well as you know it yourself. You can’t forget my sweet Euneece.”
“I tell you I tried to forget her! On my word of honor as a gentleman, I tried to forget her, in justice to Helena. Is it my fault that I failed? Eunice was in my mind, as you said just now. Oh, my friend—for you are my friend, I am sure—persuade her to see me, if it’s only for a minute!”
(Was there ever a man’s mind in such a state of confusion as this! First, I rise in his precious estimation, and Eunice drops. Then Eunice rises, and I drop. Idiot! Mischievous idiot! Even Selina seemed to be disgusted with him, when she spoke next.)