Julie had presented to Lucille;
but for that he would have formed no previous idea of real and living
beauty to aid the disappointment of his imaginings and his dreams.
He would have seen Lucille young and graceful, and with eyes beaming
affection, contrasted only by the wrinkled countenance and bended frame
of her parents, and she would have completed her conquest over him
before he had discovered that she was less beautiful than others; nay,
more,--that infidelity never could have lasted above the first few days,
if the vain and heartless object of it had not exerted every art, all
the power and witchery of her beauty, to cement and continue it. The
unfortunate Lucille--so susceptible to the slightest change in those
she loved, so diffident of herself, so proud too in that diffidence--no
longer necessary, no longer missed, no longer loved, could not bear to
endure the galling comparison between the past and the present. She
fled uncomplainingly to her chamber to indulge her tears, and thus,
unhappily, absent as her father generally was during the day, and busied
as her mother was either at work or in household matters, she left Julie
a thousand opportunities to complete the power she had begun to wield
over--no, not the heart!--the _senses_ of St. Amand! Yet, still not
suspecting, in the open generosity of her mind, the whole extent of her
affliction, poor Lucille buoyed herself at times with the hope that when
once married, when, once in that intimacy of friendship, the unspeakable
love she felt for him could disclose itself with less restraint than at
present,--she would perhaps regain a heart which had been so devotedly
hers, that she could not think that without a fault it was irrevocably
gone: on that hope she anchored all the little happiness that remained
to her. And still St. Amand pressed their marriage, but in what
different tones! In fact, he wished to preclude from himself the
possibility of a deeper ingratitude than that which he had incurred
already. He vainly thought that the broken reed of love might be bound
up and strengthened by the ties of duty; and at least he was anxious
that his hand, his fortune, his esteem, his gratitude, should give
to Lucille the only recompense it was now in his power to bestow.
Meanwhile, left alone so often with Julie, and Julie bent on achieving
the last triumph over his heart, St. Amand was gradually preparing a
far different reward, a far different return, for her to who