Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 08

								

the simplicity of my habits of life for the last few years) will suffice
for all Evelyn or myself could require.  Ah, madman that I am!  I
calculate already on marriage, even while I have so much cause for
anxiety as to love.  But my heart beats,--my heart has grown a dial that
keeps the account of time; by its movements I calculate the moments--in
an hour I shall see her!
Oh, never, never, in my wildest and earliest visions, could I have
fancied that I should love as I love now!  Adieu, my oldest and kindest
friend!  If I am happy at last, it will be something to feel that at last
I shall have satisfied your expectations of my youth.



          Affectionately yours,



               E. MALTRAVERS.



     RUE DE -----, PARIS,

          January --, 18--.

CHAPTER II.



            IN her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect--
Such as moves men.--Measure for Measure.


Abbess.  Haply in private--
Adriana.  And in assemblies too.--Comedy of Errors.
IT was true, as Maltravers had stated, that Legard had of late been
little at Lady Doltimore's, or in the same society as Evelyn.  With the
vehemence of an ardent and passionate nature, he yielded to the jealous
rage and grief that devoured him.  He saw too clearly, and from the
first, that Maltravers adored Evelyn; and in her familiar kindness of
manner towards him, in the unlimited veneration in which she appeared to
hold his gifts and qualities, he thought that that love might become
reciprocal.  He became gloomy and almost morose; he shunned Evelyn, he
forbore to enter into the lists against his rival.  Perhaps the
intellectual superiority of Maltravers, the extraordinary conversational
brilliancy that he could display when he pleased, the commanding dignity
of his manners, even the matured authority of his reputation and years,
might have served to awe the hopes, as well as to wound the vanity, of a
man accustomed himself to be the oracle of a circle.  These might have
strongly influenced Legard in withdrawing himself from Evelyn's society;
but there was one circumstance, connected with motives much more
generous, that mainly determined his conduct.  It happened that
Maltravers, shortly after his first interview with Evelyn, was riding
alone one day in the more sequestered part of the Bois de Boulogne, when
he encountered Legard, also alone, and on horseback.  The latter, on
succeeding to his uncle's fortune, had taken care to repay his debt to
Maltravers; he had done so in a short but feeling and grateful letter,
which had been forwarded to Maltravers at Paris, and which pleased and
touched him.  Since that time he had taken a liking to the young man, and
now, meeting him at Paris, he sought, to a certain extent, Legard's more
intimate acquaintance.  Maltravers was in that happy mood when we are
inclined to be friends with all men.  It is true, however, that, though
unknown to himself, that pride of bearing, which often gave to the very