One falls in love at eighteen, at eight-and-twenty, and at eight-and-forty, with very different reasons for the process. Silky hair, and long eye-lashes, and pearly teeth get jostled as we go on through life, with thoughts of good connections and the three per cents., and a strange compromise is effected between inclination and self-interest. To know, however, the true ecstasy of the passion, to feel it in all its impulsive force, and in the full strength of its irresponsibility, be very young and very poor--young enough to doubt of nothing, not even yourself; poor enough to despise riches most heartily.
Gerald was young and poor. His mind, charged with deep stores of sentiment, was eagerly seeking where to invest its wealth. The tender pathos of St. Pierre, the more dangerous promptings of Rousseau, were in his heart, and he yearned for one to whom he could speak of the feelings that struggled within him. As for Marietta, to listen to him was ecstasy. The glowing language of poetry, its brilliant imagery, its melting softness, came upon her like refreshing rain upon some arid soil, scorched and sun-stricken: her spirit, half-crushed beneath daily hardships, rose at once to the magic touch of ennobling sentiment. Oh! what a new world was that which now opened before them: how beautiful, how bright, how full of tenderness, how rich in generous emotions!
'Only think,' said she, looking into his eyes, 'but this very morning we had not known each other, and now we are bound together for ever and ever. Is it not so, _Gherardi mio?_'
'So swear I!' cried Gerald, as he pressed her to his heart; and then, in the full current of his warm eloquence, he poured forth a hundred schemes for their future career. They would seek out some sweet spot of earth, far away and secluded, like that wherein they rambled then, only more beautiful in verdure, and more picturesque, and build themselves a hut; there they would live together a life of bliss.
It was only by earnest persuasion she could turn him from at once putting the project into execution. 'Why not now?' cried he. 'Here we are free, beyond the wood; you cross a little stream, and we are in Tuscany. I saw the frontier from the mountain-top this morning.'