'Please don't, Mr. Delaford,' she said; 'I asked Mrs. Beckett to tell you--'

'She has transfixed my breast,' was the commencement, and out poured a speech worthy of any hero of Charlotte's imagination, but it was not half so pleasant to hear as to dream of, and the utmost she could say was a reiteration of her 'please don't!'

At last she mustered courage to say, 'I can't listen, sir. I never ought to have done it. I am promised now, and I can't.'

A melodramatic burst of indignation frightened her nearly out of her senses, and happily brought Jane down. He was going the next day, but he returned once more to the charge, very dolorous and ill-used; but Charlotte had collected herself and taken counsel by that time. 'I never promised you anything, sir,' she said. 'I never knew you meant nothing.'

'Ah! Miss Arnold, you cannot interpret the heart!' and he put his hand upon it.

'Nor I don't believe you meant it, neither!' continued Charlotte, with spirit. 'They tell me 'tis the way you goes on with all young women as have the ill-luck to believe you, and that 'tis all along of your hard-heartedness that poor Miss Marianne looks so dwining.'

'When ladies will throw themselves at a gentleman's head, what can a poor man do? Courtesy to the s.e.x is my motto; but never, never did I love as I love you!' said Delaford--'never have I spoken as I do now!

My heart and hand are yours, fairest Charlotte!'

'For shame, Mr. Delaford; don't you know I am promised?'

He went on, disregarding--'My family is above my present situation, confidential though it be; but I would at once quit my present post--I would open an extensive establishment for refreshment at some fashionable watering-place. My connexions could not fail to make it succeed. You should merely superintend--have a large establishment under you--and enjoy the society and amus.e.m.e.nts for which you are eminently fitted. We would have a library of romance and poetry--attend the theatre weekly--and,'--(finishing as if to clench the whole) 'Charlotte, do you know what my property consists of? I have four hundred pounds and expectations!'

If Charlotte had not been guarded, what would have been the effect of the library of poetry and romance?

But her own poetry, romance, and honest heart, all went the same way, and she cried out--'I don't care what you have, not I. I've promised, and I'll be true--get along with you!'

The village girl, hard pressed, was breaking out.

'You bid me go. Cruel girl! your commands shall be obeyed. I go abroad! You know the disturbed state of the Continent.--In some conflict for liberty, where the desperate poniard is uplifted--there--'

'Oh! don't talk so dreadful. Pray--'

'Do you bid me pause? At a word from you. You are the arbitress of my destiny.'

'No; I've nothing to do--do go! Only promise you'll not do nothing dangerous--'

'Reject me, and life is intolerable. Where the maddened crowd rise upon their tyrants, there in thickest of the fray--'

'You'll be the first to take to your heels, I'll be bound! Ain't you ashamed of yourself, to be ranting and frightening a poor girl that fashion?' cried the friendly dragon Martha, descending on them.

'Do you apply that language to me, ma'am?'

'That I do! and richly you deserve it, too, sir! See if your missus doesn't hear of your tricks, if I find you at this again.'

The 's.e.x' fairly scolded the courteous Delaford off the field; and though she turned her wrath on Charlotte for having encouraged him, and wondered what the poor young man over the seas would think of it, her interposition had never been so welcome. Charlotte cried herself into tranquillity, and was only farther disturbed by a dismal epistle, conveyed by the shoe-boy on the morning of departure, breathing the language of despair, and yet announcing that she had better think twice of the four hundred pounds and expectations, for that it was her destiny that she and no other should be the bride of Delaford.

'If I could only know he would do nothing rash!' sighed Charlotte.

Jane comforted her; Martha held that he was the last man in the world who would do anything rash. Miss Conway's Marianne, who was left behind, treated Charlotte as something ignominious, but looked so ill, miserable, and pining, that Miss Mercy was persuaded she was going into a decline, and treated her with greater kindness than she had met since she was a child.

In the meantime, Fitzjocelyn had begun with a fit of bashfulness. The knowledge that this was the crisis, and that all his friends looked to the result of the expedition, made him feel as if he were committing himself whenever he handed Isabel in or out of a carriage, and find no comfort except in Virginia's chattering.

This wore off quickly; the new scene took effect on his impressible mind, and the actual sights and sounds drove out all the rest. His high spirits came back, he freely hazarded Mrs. Frost's old boarding-school French, and laughed at the infinite blunders for which Virginia took him to task, was excessively amused at Delaford's numerous adventures, and enjoyed everything to the utmost. To Miss Conway he turned naturally as the person best able to enter into the countless a.s.sociations of every scene; and Isabel, becoming aware of his amount of knowledge, and tone of deep thought, perceived that she had done Mr. Frost Dynevor injustice in believing his friendship blind or unmerited.

They were on most comfortable terms. They had walked all over Versailles together, and talked under their breath of the murdered Queen; they had been through the Louvre, and Isabel, knowing it well of old, found all made vivid and new by his enthusiastic delight; they had marvelled together at the poor withered 'popular trees,' whose name had conferred on them the fatal distinction of trees of liberty; they had viewed, like earnest people, the scenes of republican Paris, and discussed them with the same principles, but with sufficient difference in detail for amicable argument. They had thought much of things and people, and not at all of each other.

Only Isabel thought she would make the Viscount into a Vidame, both as more quaint and less personal, and involving slight erasures, and Louis was surprised to find what was the true current of his thoughts. With Isabel propitious, without compunction in addressing her, with all the novelty and amus.e.m.e.nt before him, he found himself always recurring to Mary, trying all things by Mary's judgment, wondering whether he should need approval of his theories in Mary's eyes, craving Mary's sympathies, following her on her voyage, and imagining her arrival.

Was it the perverse spirit of longing after the most unattainable?

He demanded of himself whether it were a fatal sign that he regretted the loss of Isabel, when she went to spend a few days with her old governess. Miss Longman had left the Conway family in order to take care of the motherless children of a good-for-nothing brother, who had run too deeply into debt to be able to return to England. He was now dead, but she was teaching English, and obtaining advantages of education for her nieces, which detained her at Paris; and as she had a bed to offer her former pupil, Isabel set her heart on spending her last three days in the unrestrained intercourse afforded by a visit to her. Louis found that though their party had lost the most agreeable member, yet it was not the loss of the sun; and that he was quite as ready to tease his aunt and make Virginia laugh, as if Isabel had been looking on with a smile of wonder and commiseration for their nonsense.

CHAPTER XX.

THE FANTASTIC VISCOUNT.

Search for a jewel that too casually Hath left mine arm: it was thy master's. Shrew me If I would lose it for a revenue Of any king's in Europe!--Cymbeline.

'My dear Fitzjocelyn, what is to be done? Have you heard? Delaford says these horrid creatures are rising! There was an attack on the Hotel de Ville last night! A thousand people killed, at least!--The National Guard called out!'

'One of the lions of Paris, my dear aunt; Virginia is seeing it in style.'

'Seeing it! We must go at once. They will raise those horrid barricades;--we shall be closed in. And Isabel gone to that governess!

I wish I had never consented! How could I come here at all?

Fitzjocelyn, what is to be done?'

'Drive round that way, if you are bent on going,' said Louia, coolly.

'Meantime, Virginia, my dear, I will thank you for some coffee.'

'How can you talk of such things?' cried his aunt. 'It is all those savage wretches, mad because the national workshops are closed.

Delaford declares they will ma.s.sacre all the English.'

'Poor wretches, I believe they are starving. I think you are making yourself ill--the most pressing danger. Come, Virginia, persuade your mamma to sit down to breakfast, while I go to reconnoitre. Where are the pa.s.sports?'

Virginia had lost all terror in excitement, but neither she nor her mother could bear to let him go out, to return they knew not when. The carriage had already been ordered, but Lady Conway was exceedingly frightened at the notion of driving anywhere but direct to the railway station; she was sure that they should encounter something frightful if they went along the Boulevards.

'Could not Delaford go to fetch Isabel?' suggested Virginia, 'he might take a carriage belonging to the hotel.'

Delaford was summoned, and desired to go to fetch Miss Conway, but though he said, 'Yes, my Lady,' he looked yellow and white, and loitered to suggest whether the young lady would not be alarmed.

'I will go with you,' said Louis. 'Order the carriage, and I shall be ready.'

Lady Conway, to whom his presence seemed protection, was almost remonstrating, but he said, 'Delaford is in no state to be of use. He would take bonjour for a challenge. Let me go with him, or he will take care the young lady is alarmed. When we are all together, we can do as may seem best, and I shall be able better to judge whether we are to fight or fly.'

Outside the door he found Delaford, who begged to suggest to his lordship that my Lady would be alarmed if she were left without either of them, he could hardly answer it to himself that she should remain without any male protector.

'Oh yes, pray remain to defend her,' said Louis, much amused, and hastening down-stairs he ordered the carriage to drive to Rue ----, off the Boulevard St. Martin.

He thought there were signs boding tempest. Shops were closed, and men in blouses were beginning to a.s.semble in knots--here and there the red-cap loomed ominously in the far end of narrow alleys, and in the wider streets the only pa.s.sengers either seemed in haste like himself, or else were National Guards hurrying to their alarm-post.