"I cannot afford to add jealousy to my other torments. Tell me, then--"
"Take care, sir, take care; your question may cost you more than you think of."
"Good-bye,--good-bye," said he, sadly, and departed. "Are the horses ready, Fenton?" asked he, as his servant came to meet him.
"Yes, sir; and Captain Lyle has been looking for you all over the garden."
"He's going,--he 's off, Bella," said Alice, as she sat down beside her sister's bed, throwing her bonnet carelessly down at her feet.
"Who is going?--who is off?" asked Bella, eagerly.
"Of course," continued Alice, following up her own thoughts, "to say 'Stay' means more than I like to be pledged to,--I couldn't do it."
"Poor Tony!--give him my love, Alice, and tell him I shall often think of him,--as often as ever I think of bygone days and all their happiness."
"And why must it be Tony that I spoke of?" said Alice, rising, while a deep crimson flush covered her face and brow. "I think Master Tony has shown us latterly that he has forgotten the long ago, and has no wish to connect us with thoughts of the future."
In one of those low-ceilinged apartments of a Parisian _hôtel_ which modern luxury seems peculiarly to affect, decorating the walls with the richest hangings, and gathering together promiscuously objects of art and _virtù_, along with what can minister to voluptuous ease, Maitland and Caffarelli were now seated. They had dined, and their coffee stood before them on a table spread with a costly dessert and several bottles, whose length of neck and color indicated choice liquor.
They lounged in the easiest of chairs in the easiest of attitudes, and, as they puffed their havannahs, did not ill-represent in tableau the luxurious self-indulgence of the age we live in. For let us talk as we will of progress and mental activity, be as boastful as we may about the march of science and discovery, in what are we so really conspicuous as in the inventions that multiply ease, and bring the means of indulgence within the reach of even moderate fortune?
As the wood fire crackled and flared on the ample hearth, a heavy plash of hail struck the window, and threatened almost to smash it.
"What a night!" said Maitland, drawing closer to the blaze. "I say, _Carlo mio_, it's somewhat cosier to sit in this fashion than be toddling over the Mont Cenis in a shabby old sledge, and listening to the discussion whether you are to spend the night in the 'Refuge No. One, or No. Two.'"