My heart stood still. And shall I confess that for an instant my wits, too, paused to play the gourmet with my emotions? She sat beside me in the darkness, you understand, waiting, mine to touch. And everywhere the world was filled with beautiful, kind people, and overhead God smiled down upon His world, and a careless seraph had left open the door of Heaven, so that quite a deal of its splendor flooded the world about us. And the snoring of Gerald was now inaudible because of a stately music which was playing somewhere.
"Frank--!" she breathed. And I noted that her voice was no less tender than her lips.
_As Played at Tunbridge Wells, April 2, 1750_
"_Ye gods, why are not hearts first paired above, But still some interfere in others' love, Ere each for each by certain marks are known? You mould them up in haste, and drop them down, And while we seek what carelessly you sort, You sit in state, and make our pains your sport._"
CAPTAIN AUDAINE, an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman. LORD HUMPHREY DEGGE, an airy young gentleman, loves Miss Allonby for her money. VANRINGHAM, emissary and confederate of Audaine. MISS ALLONBY, a young lady of wit and fortune.
Tunbridge Wells, first in and about Lord Humphrey's lodgings, then shifting to a drawing-room in Lady Allonby's villa.
Next morning Captain Audaine was closeted with Mr. Vanringham in the latter's apartments at the _Three Gudgeons_. I abridge the Captain's relation of their interview, and merely tell you that it ended in the actor's looking up, with a puzzled face, from a certain document.
"You might have let me have a whiff of this," Mr. Vanringham began. "You might have breathed, say, a syllable or two last night--"
"I had my instructions, sir, but yesterday," replied the Captain; "and surely, Mr. Vanringham, to have presumed last night upon my possession of this paper, so far as to have demanded any favor of you, were unreasonable, even had it not savored of cowardice. For, as it has been very finely observed, it is the nicest part of commerce in the world, that of doing and receiving benefits. O Lord, sir! there are so many thousand circumstances, with respect to time, person, and place, which either heighten or allay the value of the obligation--"