Meanwhile, had I wanted solace, it lay close at hand. Theresa was as kind to me as she had been, on our first meeting, rude. I rode with her, sometimes twice a day, and got to like the exercise so well, that I looked forward to it with pleasure. I don’t say the pleasure wasn’t immensely increased by my companion. She talked charmingly, with a mixture of vivacity and good sense that made her conversation refreshing to listen to. She was well-read, as her father had affirmed, but displayed her stores with so much tact and modesty, that I never remember hearing her make a learned allusion of which the appropriateness to the matter under discussion did not entirely extinguish every suspicion of pedantry.

It was manifestly her resolution to charm out of my memory the very false impression of her character she had sought to establish. The sense that my heart belonged to another made her feel perfectly easy with me. She would speak her mind on a great variety of subjects; sentimental arguments were frequent; we could talk of love in an “aibstract sense” like Sidney Smith’s Scotch young lady; reason on the emotions, and puzzle each other with metaphysics. We were both perfectly honest and knew no danger. Moreover we were cousins, and everybody knows the nature of cousins’ rights.

Now I may as well confess—being of opinion that a man ought always to seize the earliest opportunity to tell the truth—that, like most young men of four-and-twenty, I was large-hearted: by which I mean, there beat in my bosom an organ sufficiently elastic to include several objects at once. I have pretty well established my claims to inflammability by my brief reference to Pauline (not to speak of the others, who are nameless) and by the very headlong way in which I had fallen in love with Conny. I am well aware that among a certain order of novelists and novel readers, a hero is thought a very contemptible poor creature if he does not remain undeviatingly true to his first love through forty or fifty chapters of close print; although during his journey through these chapters, he may have to encounter several fascinating and seductive young persons, who exert all the arts they have acquired by a long apprenticeship to the science of love-making, to divert him from the straight path that leads him to the altar, where, robed in the shining nuptial raiment, stands the Only and the True.

If this were an idle work of fiction, instead of a solid and trustworthy narrative of facts, I should, no doubt, pursue the established system, and save the printers a very great deal of labour by enabling them to use some of their stereotypes. But I carry my ink-bottle in my bosom; and into it I dip my pen, whilst memory hoarsely dictates and judgment scowlingly corrects.

Now, do I represent a species, or am I a unique? When I tell you that though I remained fondly attached to Conny through a large number of those days darkened by her barbarous neglect, I could still find a very great pleasure in riding with Theresa, talking to her, listening to her singing, and saying pretty things with a tolerably significant face, will you pronounce me an impossibility, or allow that I acted as a great number of young men have acted, are acting, and will for ever act?Come, drop that stone. You know I’m a species. Every woman knows I am a species. No need to quote bacchanalian lyrics, to mangle Moore, or steal from Morris, to prove that a man may be fond of one and flirt with many. But since the testimonies of the great are always valuable, hear musical Prior sing:

Theresa gained upon me every day. Fresh characteristics were for ever cropping up to charm me with new aspects of her nature. She was hearty, genuine, cheerful; piquant with candour, amusing with originality. Moreover, I found my admiration of her fine face and figure increase in proportion as I grew familiar with them. The longer Conny remained silent the more powerful became my regard for her cousin. I pictured that fair-haired girl devoted—to Curling; and jealousy stung me, and turned me to Theresa, and obliged me to think of her.

And how did Theresa treat me? Amiably. Her behaviour admitted no other construction. But of one thing I was sure; had she suspected the very doubtful feelings that made my mind wave to and fro like a Brahmin swinging at a holy festival, she would have chilled me into a very decorous and distant reserve. Pride she had in abundance. It peeped out in all directions. But it did not affect her behaviour to me; simply because she believed me heart and soul devoted to Conny; and attributed any effervescing manner of mine to the most cousinly impulses, and the most laudable anxiety to be thought amiable.

I had been now ten days at my uncle’s. He had begged me in his hearty, hospitable manner to stop the fortnight, and I had consented.

There had been a time during those ten days when I was eager for nothing but to return to Updown. But Conny’s silence had made me rebellious. I have indicated some of the thoughts that upset me. Since she wouldn’t write to me, what right had she to expect me to show any great desire to see her? I said to myself: “She ought to understand that I am not to be trifled with. My feelings are not to be trampled upon. If she really cares about me, my prolonged absence will chafe her; and an irritant may serve to excite her languid emotion into a good, sturdy passion. She will conclude that I have found something very fascinating in Theresa; thus, by reasoning herself into a jealous mood, she will be taught that she loves; my behaviour shall attest my sincerity, and the rest shall be lost in the murmurs of the marriage-service.”

However, I should be untruthful to pretend that my resolution to stop a fortnight at Thistlewood was entirely owing to my desire to pique Conny.

It was quite impossible for a young man so ardently devoted to the sex as I was, to be day after day in the company of a young lady with finer eyes than ever Reynolds painted, and with such a figure as Canova had worshipped, and not be very sensibly affected. I well remember leaning over her one day when she was playing the piano, and sighing inaudibly, “Yes! were Conny to deceive me, here might I find her substitute.” Did I start on becoming sensible of the escape of so disloyal a sentiment? Not I. I never started in my life at an idea of my own. Am I a Radcliffean, an Ainsworthian hero, that I skip in my cloak to an impulse, and recoil with bloodshot eyes before a fancy?

It was Conny’s fault. Were it the last drop in the well—I mean, were this my last breath, I should say, “Conny was to blame.”

I loved her as fondly as any man can love whose passion is fed by the beauty, but not by the promises, of the adored. Is beauty a good foundation for love? Are the Goodwin Sands a good dry dock for a ship? Beauty inspires passion, but will it create sincerity? Something more than that is wanted, I think. No love lasts that is unrequited. No lamp burns long that isn’t replenished with oil. There are hundreds of verses among the poets illustrative of this, the best of which I might easily quote if I knew where to find them. Don’t say this digression is neither here nor there. It is here and there too. It concerns my sincerity; it vindicates my loyalty.

Riding with Theresa on a fragrant and glowing summer evening, we fell to talking about Conny. By this time I had made up my mind to understand that she didn’t mean to answer my letter, and something like a sense of resignation was lodged at the centre of my being. All those tendencies to pull my hair, to neglect my cravat, to write verses against the whole sex, with citric acid in my ink-bottle, were subdued or dead. I had, indeed, my sneerful intervals, but Theresa was always at hand with her beauty for me to forget myself in.

How the subject came about I don’t know, but I remember that Theresa asked me if Conny had ever answered my letter.

“No,” I answered quickly, clapping my hand, so to speak, over the nerve-pulp her innocent question had laid bare.

“I suppose she does not think it worth while to write, as she hopes to meet you shortly.”

“That is no excuse,” I answered sternly. “I wrote to her eight, nine days ago, and she ought to have answered me.”

Theresa lifted her eyebrows, and thoughtfully patted her horse’s neck.

“You would have answered me,” I said.

“I always answer the letters I receive.”

“If she loved me she would have replied by return of post.”

“Oh, you mustn’t rush to severe conclusions. A word will explain everything, no doubt.”

“I can imagine no excuse for her silence,” I exclaimed sulkily. “Would I have treated her so? Had I received a letter from her, she would have had my answer before the ink upon her pen was dry. I hate to be neglected. People neglect those they despise. She very well knows how a letter would have gratified me, and nothing but an abominable theory of heartlessness,” I cried, “can account for her neglect.”

It was fortunate for my horse that I wore no spurs, or God knows where I should have driven them to, with the violent plunge I gave with my legs as I spoke.

“All this is rank heresy,” said Theresa, laughing, “for which, on your return, you will be judged, sentenced, and executed.”

“It is galling truth,” I answered; “but if she thinks I care, she is very much mistaken.”

“Then let us suppose she cares.”

“Neither of us cares. She never liked me. It amused her to hear my nonsense; though, for anything I know, I may barely have saved myself from being repulsive. A woman detests to be made love to by the man she dislikes. Why did she encourage me? A look would have kept me off; a sneer dispersed me. I’m not a burr. I am not one of those adhesive animals whom no hints, no open-mouthed aversion, can dislodge. I am by nature so sensitive, that it is now a miracle to me how I contrived to tell her what feelings I had, before I was sure she was willing to hear them.”

“You must make allowances,” said Theresa, who seemed greatly amused. “You confessed that Conny wasn’t in love with you, and you have therefore no right to expect any favour from her.”

“But you’ll allow that she might have answered my letter.”Well, she would allow that.

“And you’ll allow that there is nothing more mortifying than to write a letter and receive no answer.”

Yes; that also could be allowed.

“It is gross rudeness,” I continued, “even in a stranger whose reply you don’t care twopence about. But in a relation—a cousin—a young lady—a girl who knows that the writer of the letter she receives with silent contempt is—is—is——”

Words failed me.

“Conny will explain when you meet.”

“I don’t care whether she does or not,” I exclaimed. “My love has received a blow—a wound—if it dies the blood is on her head.”

“Nonsense!” cried Theresa. “A lover’s quarrel.”I felt too indignant to answer. So we jogged on in silence for some minutes, I as insensible to the abounding beauties of the evening, as if I had worn green spectacles.

“I wouldn’t feel so vexed,” said I presently, “by her not answering my letter, if I were sure that I had no rival. But I can’t forget—I never can forget—that there is one Curling, a frizzy-headed youth, cashier in my uncle’s bank, who paid her so much attention before I knew her, that her mamma grew frightened, and forbade him the house.”

“But you knew of this Mr. Curling before you made love to her?”

“Come, come, Theresa, her conduct is inexcusable. Oughtn’t she to have answered my letter? Answer me that.”“I have answered you that once. In my opinion, Charlie, if Conny is not in love with you, she is to be congratulated.”

“Eh! how?” I cried.

“Because I don’t think you are in love with her,” she answered, fixing her bright eyes on me.

“If I am not, whose fault is it?” I said, blushing.

“There is an old French proverb that says we forgive in proportion as we love. I don’t find you making enough excuses for Conny to satisfy me that you love her.”

“Love makes people critical and harsh,” said I, “not lenient. I never believe what a Frenchman says about love. They know nothing about it in that country. When I left Updown I was in Conny’s power. She could have twisted me round her little finger. But she has chosen to ill-use me, and by heavens——who-o-o!”

The movement of my horse spoilt a rabid peroration.

“I consider Conny treats you exactly as you deserve.”

“What do you mean? do you really think I don’t—I didn’t love her?”

“You admired her, and mistook your feelings. It is fortunate for you both,” she continued, with great seriousness, “that you left Updown, as your absence has enabled you to test your own feelings as well as hers. You would have married her for her face, without asking your heart if it contained a more permanent emotion than admiration; and it is quite impossible to imagine how unhappy disappointment would have rendered you both.”

I laughed outright, so much was I amused by her cool and critical summary of my feelings. I don’t know whether she saw anything to disapprove in my merriment, but she remained very grave. There is no question but that I ought to have been abashed; that I ought to have cried, either aloud or to myself, “Can it be possible that my cousin speaks the truth? have I mistaken my sentiments? Has a ten days’ separation from the girl I was prepared to adore, coupled with a little trifling neglect on her part, taught me a right appreciation of the emotion I had regarded as the most exalted and undying love?”

But I indulged in no such soliloquy. Looking at Theresa, steadily, I said, “Do you think me a jilt?”

“No. If I did, I shouldn’t take the trouble to be commonly civil to you.”

“But you think I have jilted Conny?”

“I have not said so. I don’t believe she is in love with you, and a man can’t jilt a girl who doesn’t care for him.”

“If I were conceited, I shouldn’t like to hear that.”

“Oh,” she answered, smiling, “this is a very old story. Pictures and books have been made out of it in abundance. Some silly writers vamp up a broken heart as a condition of the tale, but never yet was heart broken by people who didn’t know their own minds.”

She shook her reins, and started her horse into a gallop.I rode with so much assurance now that I could admire her fine figure with my faculties entirely unengaged by the cares of the highway. How well she sat her horse! How gracefully her form responded to the movement of the animal! She was a finer woman than Conny. There was a tartness, too, in her speech that made her language relishable, with a spiciness I could not remember tasting in Conny’s conversation. I was both piqued and amused by the very cool way in which she had disposed of these sentiments of mine, of which, after all, she could only suspect the evanescence.

Only the other day I was thinking I would rather marry Lucifer than such a shrew, and now nothing hindered me from expressing my admiration, in terms that would have borrowed a very soft significance from my heart, but the apprehension of a curt and contemptuous rebuff.

Again and again I will repeat, it was all owing to Conny. She had me once securely; she might have kept me for ever. Why hadn’t she answered my letter? One tender sentence would have made me her slave again. Echo not, Eugenio, the remark of Theresa that I had no right to expect a favour of any kind from Conny. An answer to my letter I could claim, not as a favour, but as a right. Two lines would have sufficed me. Yea, my bare address on an envelope would have told me I was not forgotten—that my tender breathings were remembered. Didn’t she know the risk she ran by treating me neglectfully at the time that Theresa was my companion; at the time that a fine, a handsome, and an amiable woman was the sole female society I frequented? You starve your dog, and call him unfaithful, because he takes up his quarters in the house of a neighbour where he is affectionately caressed and plentifully fed! What vile logic is here? Treat me well and I’ll love thee. Answer me my long and amorous letter, and I’ll be true. Hint that thy heart is not insensible to the pleadings of my passion, and I’ll adore. But leave me to quit thee, chewing the airiest cud of unsubstantial hope, suffer me to depart, making no sign, to be absent and illuminate my desolate fancies with no gleam from thy careless heart—What wonder if I am found wanting? What marvel if I discover in eyes as splendid as thine, in hair as abundant though darker, in speech more vivacious, intelligent and characteristic, in manners as womanly, as gentle, as dignified, a magic that leads me from thy altar, oh faithless one, on which no fire burns, to another shrine, whereon it may be my rapture to kindle an inextinguishable flame?