Well, then, listen to me! I presume when you made up your mind to propose to Miss Darcy, you weigh'd All the drawbacks against the equivalent gains, Ere you finally settled the point. What remains But to stick to your choice? You want money: 'tis here.
A settled position: 'tis yours. A career:
You secure it. A wife, young, and pretty as rich, Whom all men will envy you. Why must you itch To be running away, on the eve of all this, To a woman whom never for once did you miss All these years since you left her? Who knows what may hap?
This letter--to ME--is a palpable trap.
The woman has changed since you knew her. Perchance She yet seeks to renew her youth's broken romance.
When women begin to feel youth and their beauty Slip from them, they count it a sort of a duty To let nothing else slip away unsecured Which these, while they lasted, might once have procured.
Lucile's a coquette to the end of her fingers, I will stake my last farthing. Perhaps the wish lingers To recall the once reckless, indifferent lover To the feet he has left; let intrigue now recover What truth could not keep. 'Twere a vengeance, no doubt--
A triumph;--but why must YOU bring it about?
You are risking the substance of all that you schemed To obtain; and for what? some mad dream you have dream'd.
ALFRED.
But there's nothing to risk. You exaggerate, Jack, You mistake. In three days, at the most, I am back.
JOHN.
Ay, but how? . . . discontented, unsettled, upset, Bearing with you a comfortless twinge of regret.
Preoccupied, sulky, and likely enough To make your betroth'd break off all in a huff.
Three days, do you say? But in three days who knows What may happen? I don't, nor do you, I suppose.
V.
Of all the good things in this good world around us, The one most abundantly furnish'd and found us, And which, for that reason, we least care about, And can best spare our friends, is good counsel, no doubt.
But advice, when 'tis sought from a friend (though civility May forbid to avow it), means mere liability In the bill we already have drawn on Remorse, Which we deem that a true friend is bound to indorse.
A mere lecture on debt from that friend is a bore.
Thus, the better his cousin's advice was, the more Alfred Vargrave with angry resentment opposed it.
And, having the worst of the contest, he closed it With so firm a resolve his bad ground to maintain, That, sadly perceiving resistance was vain, And argument fruitless, the amiable Jack Came to terms and assisted his cousin to pack A slender valise (the one small condescension Which his final remonstrance obtain'd), whose dimension Excluded large outfits; and, cursing his stars, he Shook hands with his friend and return'd to Miss Darcy.
VI.
Lord Alfred, when last to the window he turn'd, Ere he lock'd up and quitted his chamber, discern'd Matilda ride by, with her cheek beaming bright In what Virgil has call'd, "Youth's purpureal light"
(I like the expression, and can't find a better).
He sigh'd as he look'd at her. Did he regret her?
In her habit and hat, with her glad golden hair, As airy and blithe as a blithe bird in air, And her arch rosy lips, and her eager blue eyes, With her little impertinent look of surprise, And her round youthful figure, and fair neck, below The dark drooping feather, as radiant as snow,--
I can only declare, that if I had the chance Of passing three days in the exquisite glance Of those eyes, or caressing the hand that now petted That fine English mare, I should much have regretted Whatever might lose me one little half-hour Of a pastime so pleasant, when once in my power.
For, if one drop of milk from the bright Milky Way Could turn into a woman, 'twould look, I dare say, Not more fresh than Matilda was looking that day.
VII.
But, whatever the feeling that prompted the sigh With which Alfred Vargrave now watched her ride by, I can only affirm that, in watching her ride, As he turned from the window he certainly sigh'd.
