“Come nearer, my sweet Henry,” said she, “I rejoice to see you; though you have proved my worst enemy, the destroyer of my peace. But your intentions, my kind boy, my brother, for such I will still call you, have always been good and innocent. But, ah, Henry, you have deluded me; you urged me to banish despair; and every day I see more reason to despair.”
I asked if she had not seen the chevalier since his return to Presburg.
“It were better for me,” replied Pandora, “if I had not seen him. What has really happened, is worse than if I had been denied to see him. I have met him every day in the apartments of my aunt. To an indifferent eye it would have appeared as if he neither sought nor avoided me. He carries himself towards me with a cold and constrained civility. But he neither demands an interview, nor allows me the opportunity to utter a word to him in private. Oh, D’Aubigny, I see too well that I have lost him for ever. When he fled my presence, when he resolved to seek some distant region, cruel as that conduct was, it convinced me that I was of some importance to him. But now he passes by me in stern neglect; he has utterly driven me from his heart. Indeed, my brother, this last blow is too much; I feel that I shall never recover it.”
“And does the chevalier,” cried I, “appear at his ease? Does he exhibit the wonted symptoms of his health and triumphant spirit?”
“Away; too pleasing deluder!” replied Pandora. “Cheat me not with false hopes! flatter me not with unreal expectations! Damville does not appear to be well or happy. But you have deceived me too much; the disappointments that you prepared for me are too excruciating. I feel now at no time so high a degree of gloomy satisfaction and composure, as when I press despair firmly to my breast.
“But you, Henry,” continued she, “are probably uninformed of my last and severest misfortune. I had a great uncle in the list of the adventurers that achieved the conquest of Peru; he has died, and unexpectedly bequeathed me a fortune, that sets the portionless Pandora upon a level with the wealthy heiresses of the great palatine himself. For a long time want of fortune was the only obstacle that stood between me and all my hopes of happiness. Now that poverty is no longer an evil to me, and wealth no longer desirable, I have obtained this unwelcome acquisition. You can have no conception how painful a sensation is produced by this mockery, the gift of ample possessions to the votary of despair.”
I endeavoured somewhat to encourage Pandora; but she obstinately rejected my soothings. I was the less importunate on this subject, as, since the return of my son, I persisted to persuade myself that I should soon have something more substantial to offer her on his part, than mere guesses and conjectures. The day after this conversation, I boldly sought the presence of the chevalier. Till then, I had, since our return to Presburg, avoided to meet him. I now resolved to force from him a hearing; to assure him, with the most solemn asseverations, of my own innocence, and the constancy of his mistress; to represent to him in how eminent a degree the newly acquired estate of Pandora was calculated to facilitate their mutual wishes; and finally, to offer him any pledge he should desire of the sincerity of my declarations, even to the banishing myself from the presence and intercourse of him and the lovely Pandora for ever.
When I saw my son, his appearance and air advanced a forcible claim on my compassion. I will not now describe them. Suffice it, that they completely proved, how true was the sympathy, even to the minutest particulars, between him and his mistress. The difference was only in kind, and not in degree: hers a defenceless, a delicate and truly feminine grief; while his, amidst all its aggravations, had something in it of the champion and the hero. When he felt most severely, he seemed to disdain himself for what he felt; and, though his struggles were excruciating, he resolutely smoothed his manly front, and the loftiness of his spirit produced on his cheek a generous and a settled blush.
I have just said that I had resolved to force from him a hearing. I was mistaken in my calculations on this point. Dejected as his habits had lately been, he no sooner saw me, than he advanced towards me with a fierce and imperative demeanour, that absolutely startled me.
“How is it, man!” cried he, “that you are at this hour out of custody?”