I was sufficiently piqued at the first delay. Why delay, when I offer? Would you have thought, Fairfax, I should have been so very ready with a tender of this my pleasant person, and my dear freedom? And could you moreover have thought it would have been so haughtily rejected?--No--Curse it! Let me do her justice, too. It is not haughtily. She puts as many smiles, and as much sweetness, and plausibility, into her refusal as heart could desire. But refusal it is, nevertheless.
I must be further just to her: I must own that I have acted like a lunatic--I am mad at the recollection!--
I told you of the young fellow--Frank Henley--Whom I talked of chastising. Curse on my petulance! He has doubly chastised me since! He has had his full revenge! And in such a generous, noble manner--I am ashamed of myself--He has saved my life, and damn me if I do not feel as if I could never forgive him. There was an end of me and my passions. What business had he to interfere?--He did it too in such an extraordinary style! He appears to have risked more, laboured more, performed more for me than man almost ever did for his dearest and sworn friend.
Mine was an act of such ridiculous phrensy that I am half ashamed to tell what it was. I jumped headlong down a declivity, because I knew I was a good swimmer, into a lake; but, like a blockhead, never perceived that I should get stunned by the shelving of the rock, and consequently drowned. And for what, truly? Why to prove to a vapouring, crack-brained French Count, that he was a coward; because perhaps he had not learned to swim! When I look back I have absolutely no patience with myself!--
And then this generous Frank Henley!--After a still more seemingly desperate leap than mine, and bringing me out of the water, dead as a door nail, two hours did he incessantly labour to restore me to life! I, who a few hours before had struck him! And here do I live to relate all this!
I think I could have forgiven him any thing sooner than this triumph over me. Yet he claims and forces my admiration. I must own he is a dauntless fellow--Yes, he has a heart--! Damn him! I could kiss him one minute and kill him the next!
He has been the hero of the women ever since. But they are safe enough, for him. He has principles! He is a man of virtue, forsooth! He is not the naughty cat that steals the cream! Let him be virtuous. Let him lave in his own imaginary waters of purity; but do not let him offend others, every moment, by jumping out and calling--'Here! Look at me! How white and spotless I am!'