The Cardinal's Snuff Box

At these moments he would look up towards the castle, and

picture the morrow's consummation; and his heart would have a

convulsion. Imagination flew on the wings of his desire. She

stood before him in all her sumptuous womanhood, tender and

strong and glowing. As he spoke, her eyes lightened, her eyes

burned, the blood came and went in her cheeks; her lips parted.

Then she whispered something; and his heart leapt terribly; and

he called her name--"Beatrice! Beatrice!" Her name expressed

the inexpressible--the adoring passion, the wild hunger and

wild triumph of his soul. But now she was moving towards him

--she was holding out her hands. He caught her in his arms--he

held her yielding body in his arms. And his heart leapt

terribly, terribly. And he wondered how he could endure, how

he could live through, the hateful hours that must elapse

before tomorrow would be to-day.

But "hearts, after leaps, ache." Presently the whirl would

begin again; and then, by and by, in another lull, a contrary

answer would seem equally plain.

"Tell her, indeed? My dear man, are you mad? She would simply

be amazed, struck dumb, by your presumption. I can see from

here her incredulity--I can see the scorn with which she would

wither you. It has never dimly occurred to her as conceivable

that you would venture to be in love with her, that you would

dare to lift your eyes to her--you who are nothing, to her who

is all. Yes--nothing, nobody. In her view, you are just a

harmless nobody, whose society she tolerates for kindness'

sake--and faute de mieux. It is precisely because she deems

you a nobody--because she is profoundly conscious of the gulf

that separates you from her--that she can condescend to be

amiably familiar. If you were of a rank even remotely

approximating to her own, she would be a thousand times more

circumspect. Remember--she does not dream that you are Felix

Wildmay. He is a mere name to her; and his story is an amusing

little romance, perfectly external to herself, which she

discusses with entirely impersonal interest. Tell her by all

means, if you like Say, 'I am Wildmay--you are Pauline.' And

see how amazed she will be, and how incensed, and how

indignant."

Then he would look up at the castle stonily, in a mood of

desperate renunciation, and vaguely meditate packing his

belongings, and going home to England.

At other moments a third answer would seem the plain one:

something between these extremes of optimism and pessimism, a

compromise, it not a reconciliation.