Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2. Lever Charles James

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      “‘Oh, that’s it!’ said he, ‘is it!’ and so he went off holding his hands to his sides with the bare laughing; and your honor knows it wasn’t a blessing she wished him, for all that.”

      CHAPTER XV

      “What a strange position this of mine!” thought I, a few mornings after the events detailed in the last chapter. “How very fascinating in some respects, how full of all the charm of romance, and how confoundly difficult to see one’s way through!”

      To understand my cogitation right, figurez-vous, my dear reader, a large and splendidly furnished drawing-room, from one end of which an orangery in full blossom opens; from the other is seen a delicious little boudoir, where books, bronzes, pictures and statues, in all the artistique disorder of a lady’s sanctum, are bathed in a deep purple light from a stained glass window of the seventeenth century.

      On a small table beside the wood fire, whose mellow light is flirting with the sunbeams upon the carpet, stands an antique silver breakfast-service, which none but the hand of Benvenuto could have chiselled; beside it sits a girl, young and beautiful; her dark eyes, beaming beneath their long lashes, are fixed with an expression of watchful interest upon a pale and sickly youth, who, lounging upon a sofa opposite, is carelessly turning over the leaves of a new journal, or gazing steadfastly on the fretted gothic of the ceiling, while his thoughts are travelling many a mile away. The lady being the Senhora Inez; the nonchalant invalid, your unworthy acquaintance, Charles O’Malley.

      What a very strange position to be sure.

      “Then you are not equal to this ball to-night?” said she, after a pause of some minutes.

      I turned as she spoke; her words had struck audibly upon my ear, but, lost in my revery, I could but repeat my own fixed thought, – how strange to be so situated!

      “You are really very tiresome, Signor; I assure you, you are. I have been giving you a most elegant description of the Casino fête, and the beautiful costume of our Lisbon belles, but I can get nothing from you but this muttered something, which may be very shocking for aught I know. I’m sure your friend, Major Power, would be much more attentive to me; that is,” added she, archly, “if Miss Dashwood were not present.”

      “What! why! You don’t mean that there is anything there – that Tower is paying attention to – ”

      “Madre divina, how that seems to interest you, and how red you are! If it were not that you never met her before, and that your acquaintance did not seem to make rapid progress, then I should say you are in love with her yourself.”

      I had to laugh at this, but felt my face flushing more. “And so,” said I, affecting a careless and indifferent tone, “the gay Fred Power is smitten at last!”

      “Was it so very difficult a thing to accomplish?” said she, slyly.

      “He seems to say so, at least. And the lady, how does she appear to receive his attentions?”

      “Oh, I should say with evident pleasure and satisfaction, as all girls do the advances of men they don’t care for, nor intend to care for.”

      “Indeed,” said I, slowly, “indeed, Senhora?” looking into her eyes as I spoke, as if to read if the lesson were destined for my benefit.

      “There, don’t stare so! – every one knows that.”

      “So you don’t think, then, that Lucy, – I mean Miss Dashwood – Why are you laughing so?”

      “How can I help it; your calling her Lucy is so good, I wish she heard it; she’s the very proudest girl I ever knew.”

      “But to come back; you really think she does not care for him?”

      “Not more than for you; and I may be pardoned for the simile, having seen your meeting. But let me give you the news of our own fête. Saturday is the day fixed; and you must be quite well, – I insist upon it. Miss Dashwood has promised to come, – no small concession; for after all she has never once been here since the day you frightened her. I can’t help laughing at my blunder, – the two people I had promised myself should fall desperately in love with each other, and who will scarcely meet.”

      “But I trusted,” said I, pettishly, “that you were not disposed to resign your own interest in me?”

      “Neither was I,” said she, with an easy smile, “except that I have so many admirers. I might even spare to my friends; though after all I should be sorry to lose you, I like you.”

      “Yes,” said I half bitterly, “as girls do those they never intend to care for; is it not so?”

      “Perhaps, yes, and perhaps – But is it going to rain? How provoking! and I have ordered my horse. Well, Signor Carlos, I leave you to your delightful newspaper, and all the magnificent descriptions of battles and sieges and skirmishes of which you seem doomed to pine without ceasing. There, don’t kiss my hand twice; that’s not right.”

      “Well, let me begin again – ”

      “I shall not breakfast with you any more. But tell me, am I to order a costume for you in Lisbon; or will you arrange all that yourself? You must come to the fête, you know.”

      “If you would be so very kind.”

      “I will, then, be so very kind; and once more, adios.” So saying, and with a slight motion of her hand, she smiled a good-by, and left me.

      “What a lovely girl!” thought I, as I rose and walked to the window, muttering to myself Othello’s line, and —

      In fact, it was the perfect expression of my feeling; the only solution to all the difficulties surrounding me, being to fall desperately, irretrievably in love with the fair senhora, which, all things considered, was not a very desperate resource for a gentleman in trouble. As I thought over the hopelessness of one attachment, I turned calmly to consider all the favorable points of the other. She was truly beautiful, attractive in every sense; her manner most fascinating, and her disposition, so far as I could pronounce, perfectly amiable. I felt already something more than interest about her; how very easy would be the transition to a stronger feeling! There was an éclat, too, about being her accepted lover that had its charm. She was the belle par excellence of Lisbon; and then a sense of pique crossed my mind as I reflected what would Lucy say of him whom she had slighted and insulted, when he became the husband of the beautiful millionnaire Senhora Inez?

      As my meditations had reached thus far, the door opened stealthily, and Catherine appeared, her finger upon her lips, and her gesture indicating caution. She carried on her arm a mass of drapery covered by a large mantle, which throwing off as she entered, she displayed before me a rich blue domino with silver embroidery. It was large and loose in its folds, so as thoroughly to conceal the figure of any wearer. This she held up before me for an instant without speaking; when at length, seeing my curiosity fully excited, she said, —

      “This is the senhora’s domino. I should be ruined if she knew I showed it; but I promised – that is, I told – ”

      “Yes, yes, I understand,” relieving her embarrassment about the source of her civilities; “go on.”

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ