nly
enough,--perhaps too plainly. Was that the mistake I made? Was my
declaration too abrupt? and if so, was it likely she would not have
uttered something like reproof? Her sudden departure might have this
signification, as though to say, 'I will spare you any comment; I
will seem even not to have apprehended you.' In the rank to which she
pertains, I have heard, a chief study is, how much can be avoided of
those rough allusions which grate upon inferior existences; how to make
life calm and peaceful, divesting it so far as may be of the irritations
that spring out of hasty words and heated tempers. In her high-bred
nature, therefore, how possible is it that she would reason thus, and
say, 'I will not hurt him by a direct refusal; I will not rebuke the
presumption of his wishes. He will have tact enough to appreciate my
conduct, and return to the topic no more! 'And yet, how patiently she
had heard me up to the very moment of that unlucky interruption. Without
a conscious sense of encouragement I had never dared to speak as I did.
Yes, assuredly, she led me on to talk of myself and my ambitions as I am
not wont to do. She went even further. She overcame objections which,
to myself, had seemed insurmountable. She spoke to me like one taking a
deep, sincere interest in my success; and was this feigned? or, if real,
what meant it? After all, might not her manner be but another phase
of that condescension with which her 'Order' listen to the plots and
projects of inferior beings,--something begotten of curiosity as much as
of interest?"

In this fashion did he guess and speculate and question on a difficulty
where even wiser heads have guessed and speculated and questioned just
as vaguely.

At last he was reminded of the circumstance which had interrupted their
converse,--the despatch. He took it from his pocket and looked at the
address and the seal, but never opened it, and with a kind of half-smile
replaced it in his pocket.

END OF VOL I

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Charles James Lever

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