“I beg your pardon; I am not one of those men who”--
But Brevan was getting more and more excited. He interrupted his friend, and said,--
“Nonsense! You are a man like all other men. Passion does not reason, does not calculate; and that is the secret of its strength. As long as we have a spark of commonsense left, we are not really in love. That is so, I tell you; and no will, no amount of energy, can do any thing with it. There are people who tell you soberly that they have been in love without losing their senses, and reproach you for not keeping cool. Bosh! Those people remind me of still champagne blaming sparkling champagne for popping off the cork. And now, my dear fellow, have the kindness to accept this cigar, and let us take a walk.”
Was that really so as Brevan said? Was it true that real love destroys in us the faculty of reasoning, and of distinguishing truth from falsehood? Did he really not love Henrietta truly, because he was on the point of giving her up for the sake of doing his duty?
Oh, no, no! Brevan had been speaking of another kind of love,--a love neither pure nor chaste. He spoke of those passions which suddenly strike us down like lightning; which confound our senses, and mislead our judgment; which destroy every thing, as fire does, and leave nothing behind but disaster and disgrace and remorse.
But all the more painful became Daniel’s thoughts as he remembered that Count Ville-Handry was overcome by one of these terrible passions for a worthless creature. He could not accept Maxime’s offer.
“One word, I pray you,” he said. “Suppose I lose my free will, and surrender absolutely; what will become of me?”
Brevan looked at him with an air of pity, and said,--
And then he added with almost sternness, mixed with bitter sarcasm,--
“You ask me for your horoscope? Be it so. Have you a large fortune?”
“Well, in six months they will be gone; in a year you will be overwhelmed with debts, and at your wits’ end; in less than a year and a half, you will have become a forger.”
“Ah! You asked me to tell you the truth. Then, as to your social position. Now it is excellent; you have been promoted as rapidly as merit could claim, everybody says. You will be an admiral one of these days. But in six months you will be nothing at all; you will have resigned your commission, or you will have been dismissed.”