'Cytherea, try to love me more than you love him--do. I love you more sincerely than any man can. Do, Cythie: don't let any man stand between us. O, I can't bear that!' She clasped Cytherea's neck again.
'I must love him now I have begun,' replied the other.
'Must--yes--must,' said the elder lady reproachfully. 'Yes, women are all alike. I thought I had at last found an artless woman who had not been sullied by a man's lips, and who had not practised or been practised upon by the arts which ruin all the truth and sweetness and goodness in us. Find a girl, if you can, whose mouth and ears have not been made a regular highway of by some man or another! Leave the admittedly notorious spots--the drawing-rooms of society--and look in the villages--leave the villages and search in the schools--and you can hardly find a girl whose heart has not been HAD--is not an old thing half worn out by some He or another! If men only knew the staleness of the freshest of us! that nine times out of ten the "first love" they think they are winning from a woman is but the hulk of an old wrecked affection, fitted with new sails and re-used. O Cytherea, can it be that you, too, are like the rest?'
'No, no, no,' urged Cytherea, awed by the storm she had raised in the impetuous woman's mind. 'He only kissed me once--twice I mean.'
'He might have done it a thousand times if he had cared to, there's no doubt about that, whoever his lordship is. You are as bad as I--we are all alike; and I--an old fool--have been sipping at your mouth as if it were honey, because I fancied no wasting lover knew the spot. But a minute ago, and you seemed to me like a fresh spring meadow--now you seem a dusty highway.'
'O no, no!' Cytherea was not weak enough to shed tears except on extraordinary occasions, but she was fain to begin sobbing now. She wished Miss Aldclyffe would go to her own room, and leave her and her treasured dreams alone. This vehement imperious affection was in one sense soothing, but yet it was not of the kind that Cytherea's instincts desired. Though it was generous, it seemed somewhat too rank and capricious for endurance.
'Well,' said the lady in continuation, 'who is he?'
Her companion was desperately determined not to tell his name: she too much feared a taunt when Miss Aldclyffe's fiery mood again ruled her tongue.
'Won't you tell me? not tell me after all the affection I have shown?'
'I will, perhaps, another day.'
'Did you wear a hat and white feather in Budmouth for the week or two previous to your coming here?'
'Yes.'
'Then I have seen you and your lover at a distance! He rowed you round the bay with your brother.'
'Yes.'
'And without your brother--fie! There, there, don't let that little heart beat itself to death: throb, throb: it shakes the bed, you silly thing. I didn't mean that there was any harm in going alone with him. I only saw you from the Esplanade, in common with the rest of the people. I often run down to Budmouth. He was a very good figure: now who was he?'
'I--I won't tell, madam--I cannot indeed!'
'Won't tell--very well, don't. You are very foolish to treasure up his name and image as you do. Why, he has had loves before you, trust him for that, whoever he is, and you are but a temporary link in a long chain of others like you: who only have your little day as they have had theirs.'
''Tisn't true! 'tisn't true! 'tisn't true!' cried Cytherea in an agony of torture. 'He has never loved anybody else, I know--I am sure he hasn't.'
Miss Aldclyffe was as jealous as any man could have been. She continued--'He sees a beautiful face and thinks he will never forget it, but in a few weeks the feeling passes off, and he wonders how he could have cared for anybody so absurdly much.'
'No, no, he doesn't--What does he do when he has thought that--Come, tell me--tell me!'
'You are as hot as fire, and the throbbing of your heart makes me nervous. I can't tell you if you get in that flustered state.'
'Do, do tell--O, it makes me so miserable! but tell---come tell me!'
'Ah--the tables are turned now, dear!' she continued, in a tone which mingled pity with derision--'"Love's passions shall rock thee As the storm rocks the ravens on high, Bright reason will mock thee Like the sun from a wintry sky."
'What does he do next?--Why, this is what he does next: ruminate on what he has heard of women's romantic impulses, and how easily men torture them when they have given way to those feelings, and have resigned everything for their hero. It may be that though he loves you heartily now--that is, as heartily as a man can--and you love him in return, your loves may be impracticable and hopeless, and you may be separated for ever. You, as the weary, weary years pass by will fade and fade--bright eyes WILL fade--and you will perhaps then die early--true to him to your latest breath, and believing him to be true to the latest breath also; whilst he, in some gay and busy spot far away from your last quiet nook, will have married some dashing lady, and not purely oblivious of you, will long have ceased to regret you--will chat about you, as you were in long past years--will say, "Ah, little Cytherea used to tie her hair like that--poor innocent trusting thing; it was a pleasant useless idle dream--that dream of mine for the maid with the bright eyes and simple, silly heart; but I was a foolish lad at that time." Then he will tell the tale of all your little Wills and Wont's and particular ways, and as he speaks, turn to his wife with a placid smile.'
