"On second thoughts, I'm wrong, Mistress Vaga. I _have_ known a man as
much in love with a woman as my cousin is with yours--know one now?"
"Indeed?"
The exclamatory rejoinder was purely mechanical, she who made it not
having enough interest in what had been said to inquire who was the
individual he alluded to. Yet this was the very question he courted.
He had to angle for it further, saying,--
"May I tell you who it is?"
"_Oh_, certainly; if you desire to do so."
Even this icy response failed to check him. He either did not perceive
its coldness, or mistook it for reticence due to the occasion. Several
times, since his first abortive attempt, he had been on the eve of
making fuller declaration to her--in short, a proposal of marriage. But
she had been dancing with others besides himself, and no good
opportunity had as yet offered. That seemed to have come now. So,
taking advantage of it, and her permission, he said, in an impressive
way,--
"The man is Reginald Trevor--myself."
If he expected her to give a start of feigned surprise, and follow it up
by the inquiry, "Who is the woman?" he was disappointed. For he but
heard repeated the laconic exclamation she had already used, and in like
tones of careless indifference.
"Indeed!" That, and nothing more.
Still unrepulsed he returned to the attack; again, as it were, begging
the question,--
"Shall I name the woman?"
"Not if you don't wish it, sir." Response that should have made him
withhold the information, if not driven him from her presence. A very
rebuff it was; and yet Reginald Trevor looked not on it in this light.
Instead, still strong in his false faith and foolish hope, he persisted,
saying,--
"But I do wish it, and will tell you; though you may little care to
know. I cannot help the confession. She I love is yourself--yourself,
Vaga Powell; and 'tis with all my heart, all my soul!" The avowal, full
and passionate, affected her no more than the hints he had already
thrown out. In the same calm tone, firm, and with the words measured,
she made response,--
"Captain Trevor, you've told me almost as much before. And if I never
gave you answer to say the feeling you profess for me was not
reciprocated, I say it now. It is not--never can be. Friends, if you
wish, let us remain; but for the other--"
"You needn't go on!" he interrupted, impatiently, almost rudely. "I've
heard enough; and now know what's the obstacle between us. Not your
father, as I once supposed, but my cousin. Well, have him, if you can
get him. As for myself, I'm consoled by thinking there are as good fish
in the sea as ever were caught out of it, and I go to catch one of them.
Adieu, Mistress Vaga Powell!" Saying which, he strode off in true
Cavalier swagger, humming a gay _chanson_; having left her alone in the
darkness of night, and the gloom of despair.
Only for an instant was she thus. Then she felt arms flung around her,
tenderly, lovingly, while listening to speech which promised to relieve
her of her misery.
"I was so glad, Vag," said Sabrina, "hearing what you said. And I've
heard something said by another, at which you'll be glad, when I tell it
you."
Almost at the same instant of time, though in a different part of the
grounds, Sir Richard Walwyn was in like manner promising to let light
into the heart of Eustace Trevor.