The passionate eloquence of Maxwell might have melted a heart less firm than that of Emily Dumont. As it was, the cold expression of contempt left her features, and, if not disposed to listen with favor to his suit, she was softened into pity for his assumed misery. Under any other circumstances, the lie he had a moment before uttered would have forever condemned him in her sight. But her charitable disposition compelled her to believe that it was the last resort of a mind on the verge of despair.
"Mr. Maxwell," said she, "I am deeply grieved that you should have suffered any unhappiness on my account."
"I will bless you for even those words," returned Maxwell, hastily, feeling that he had gained the first point.
"But I do not intend to encourage your suit," promptly returned the lady.
"Be not again unkind! Veil not that heavenly sympathy in the coldness of indifference again!"
"I wish not to be harsh, or unkind. You have before given me an index of your sentiments, and I have endeavored, by all courteous means, to discountenance them."
"Yet I have always found something upon which to base a flickering hope."
"If you have, I regret it all the more."
"Do not say so! Changed as has been your demeanor towards me, I have dared to fan the flame in my heart, till now it is a raging fire, and beyond my control."
"I cannot give my hand where my heart is uninterested," replied the lady, feelingly. "I love you not. I am candid, and plain, and I trust this unequivocal declaration will forever terminate any hope you have cherished in relation to this matter. Painful as I now feel it must be for you to hear, and painful as it is to me, on that account, to declare it, I repeat—I can never reciprocate the affection you profess. And now let this interview terminate. It is too painful to be prolonged;"—and she again moved towards the door.
"Do not leave me to despair!" pleaded Maxwell, earnestly, as he followed her toward the door. "At least, bid me wait, bid me prove myself worthy—anything, but do not forever extinguish the little star I have permitted to blaze in the firmament of my heart—the star I have dared to worship. Do not veil me in utter darkness!"
"I can offer no hope—not the slightest, even to rid myself of an annoyance," replied Miss Dumont, with the return of some portion of her former dignity; for the perseverance of the attorney perplexed and troubled her exceedingly.
"You know not to what a fate you doom me," said Maxwell, heedless of the lady's rebuke.
"There is no remedy;" and Miss Dumont grasped the door-knob.
"There is a remedy. Bid me wait a month, a year, any time, till you examine more closely your own heart. Give me any respite from hopeless misery."
"You have my answer; and now I trust to your honor as a gentleman to save me from further annoyance," said Miss Dumont, with spirit, for her patience was fast ebbing out.
"I will not annoy you," replied Maxwell, with emphasis, as he assumed an air of more self-possession. "I have been pleading for exemption from the direst of human miseries. But I will not annoy you, even to save myself from endless woe."
"Forget this misplaced affection; for he assured my sentiments will continue unchanged."
"I can never forget it; but I will strive to endure it with resignation. I feel that I must still cherish the presumptuous hope that you will yet relent."
"Destroy not your own peace; for the hope must be a vain one. Good-afternoon;" and the lady departed before the attorney had time to add another hyperbolical profession of a passion which, however well acted, was not half so deeply grounded as he had led the unsuspecting object of it to believe. That he really loved her was to some extent true. That his love was earnest and pure, such as the blight of coldness and inconstancy would render painful, was not true—far from it. He had sought her hand, not to lay at her feet the offering of a hallowed affection, but to realize the object we have before mentioned—to enable him, by the possession of her vast wealth, to live a life of ease and pleasure.
He had commenced his attack upon her affections with some prospect of success. To the occasional professional visit he paid her father he had added frequent social calls, in which he had used all his eloquence to enlist the sympathies of the fair daughter. She had regarded him as an agreeable visitor; and, indeed, his natural abilities, the unceasing wit and liveliness of his conversation, had well earned him this distinction. Flattering himself that he should be able to win her affections, he had gradually emerged from the indifference of the mere formalist to the incipient attentions of the devoted lover. These overtures were not well received, and, if she had before treated him with the favor which the agreeable visitor always receives, she now extended to him only the stately courtesy of entire indifference. The visible change in the cordiality of her receptions had opened his eyes, and revealed the nature of his unpromising position. But his disposition was too buoyant, his character too energetic, to allow him to despair.
Latterly, however, a new obstacle to his suit had presented itself, in the person of a rival, upon whom the object of his ambitious wishes appeared to bestow unusual favor. This individual was a young officer in the army, a sort of protegé of the lady's father, who had been spending a furlough at Bellevue. In the matter of fortune Maxwell's rival was not to be dreaded, for he knew the lady was not mercenary in her views. The young captain was penniless; but his family was good, and he had the advantage of being a favorite with the father. He had won for himself a name on the fields of Mexico, which went far to enlist a lady's favor. He was a universal favorite both with the public and in the private circle.
Maxwell considered this young officer a formidable rival, and he resolved to retrieve himself at once. Upon his personal attractions he relied to overcome the lady's disfavor; and, notwithstanding the unequivocal intention of discountenancing his suit she had manifested, he resolved to open his campaign by addressing her, eloquently and tenderly, through the medium of a letter. He felt that he could in this manner gain her attention to his suit—a point which his vanity assured him was equivalent to a victory. But his philosophy and his vanity were both sorely tried by the return of the letter unopened. His point was lost, and he was harassing his fertile brain with vain attempts to suggest any scheme short of honest, straight-forward wooing—which the circumstances seemed to interdict—when the visit of the lady herself rendered further efforts useless.
His position, resting, as it did, on the purpose of marrying the heiress—a purpose too deeply incorporated with his future prospects to be resigned—was now a desperate one. Through the long vista of struggles and difficulties he saw his end, and the fact that he had to some extent compromised his heart stimulated him still more to meet and overcome the barriers that environed him.
For an hour after the lady's departure the young lawyer pondered the obstacles which beset him. With the aspect of an angry rather than a disappointed man, he paced the office with rapid and irregular strides. He could devise no expedient. A lady's will is absolute, and he must bend in submission. He blamed his own tardiness one moment, and his precipitancy the next; then he cursed his ill luck, and vented his anger and disappointment in a volley of oaths.
His meditations were again interrupted, by his attendant's announcement of "Mr. Dumont."
"Ah, good-morning, sir! I was just on the point of going to Bellevue. Nothing serious has happened, I trust," said Maxwell, laying aside, with no apparent effort, his troubled visage, and assuming his usual bland demeanor.
"Nothing," replied the visitor, gruffly.
"Your niece left the office an hour since," continued Maxwell. "She requested me immediately to visit your brother."
"Which you have not done," returned the visitor, whom we will style Jaspar, to distinguish him from his brother, Colonel Dumont.
"But which I intend to do at once, a little matter having detained me longer than I supposed it would."
"I will save you