The Quest of the Golden Girl [38]
merrily prattling by my side, and now I was once more as lonely as if we had never met. Presently I became conscious in my reverie of a little crumpled piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was a little note pencilled in her bedroom at the last moment. "Aucassin," it ran, just like her last passionate words, "be true. I will never forget you. Stay here till I write to you, and oh, write to me soon!-- Your broken-hearted Nicolete."
As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and sorrow as I had last seen it, and pressing the precious little letter to my lips, I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be true."
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS
No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me after the last two chapters. He will think that in the scene with the Major-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and that generally my friend Alastor would have proved infinitely more worthy of the situation. It is quite true, I confess it. The whole episode was made for Alastor. Nicolete and he were born for each other. Alas! it is one of the many drawbacks of experience that it frequently prevents our behaving with spirit.
I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder reader, of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to understand me. He, I think, will understand why I didn't promptly assault the Major- General, seize Nicolete by the waist, thrust her into her ancestral carriage, haul the coachman from his box, and, seizing the reins, drive away in triumph before astonishment had time to change into pursuit. Truly it had been but the work of a moment, and there was only one consideration which prevented my following this now-I-call-that-heroic course. It is a consideration I dare hardly venture to write, and the confession of which will, I know, necessitate my changing my age back again to thirty on the instant. Oh, be merciful, dear romantic reader! I didn't strike the Major-General, because, oh, because I AGREED WITH HIM!
I loved Nicolete, you must have felt that. She was sweet to me as the bunch of white flowers that, in their frail Venetian vase, stand so daintily on my old bureau as I write, doing their best to sweeten my thoughts. Dear was she to me as the birds that out in the old garden yonder sing and sing their best to lift up my leaden heart. She was dear as the Spring itself, she was only less dear than Autumn.
Yes, black confession! after the first passion of her loss, the immediate ache of her young beauty had passed, and I was able to analyse what I really felt, I not only agreed with him, I thanked God for the Major-General! He had saved me from playing the terrible part of executioner. He had just come in time to behead the Lady Jane Grey of our dreams.
I should have no qualms about tightening the rope round the neck of some human monster, or sticking a neat dagger or bullet into a dangerous, treacherous foe, but to kill a dream is a sickening business. It goes on moaning in such a heart-breaking fashion, and you never know when it is dead. All on a sudden some night it will come wailing in the wind outside your window, and you must blacken your heart and harden your face with another strangling grip of its slim appealing throat, another blow upon its angel eyes. Even then it will recover, and you will go on being a murderer, making for yourself day by day a murderer's face, without the satisfaction of having really murdered.
But what of Nicolete? do you exclaim. Have you no thought for her, bleeding her heart away in solitude? Can you so soon forget those appealing eyes? Yes, I have thought for her. Would God that I could bear for her those growing pains of the heart! and I shall never forget those farewell eyes. But then, you see, I had firmly realised this, that she would sooner recover from our separation than from our marriage; that her love for me, pretty and poignant and dramatic while it lasted, was a book- born, book-fed dream, which must die soon or
As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and sorrow as I had last seen it, and pressing the precious little letter to my lips, I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be true."
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS
No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me after the last two chapters. He will think that in the scene with the Major-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and that generally my friend Alastor would have proved infinitely more worthy of the situation. It is quite true, I confess it. The whole episode was made for Alastor. Nicolete and he were born for each other. Alas! it is one of the many drawbacks of experience that it frequently prevents our behaving with spirit.
I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder reader, of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to understand me. He, I think, will understand why I didn't promptly assault the Major- General, seize Nicolete by the waist, thrust her into her ancestral carriage, haul the coachman from his box, and, seizing the reins, drive away in triumph before astonishment had time to change into pursuit. Truly it had been but the work of a moment, and there was only one consideration which prevented my following this now-I-call-that-heroic course. It is a consideration I dare hardly venture to write, and the confession of which will, I know, necessitate my changing my age back again to thirty on the instant. Oh, be merciful, dear romantic reader! I didn't strike the Major-General, because, oh, because I AGREED WITH HIM!
I loved Nicolete, you must have felt that. She was sweet to me as the bunch of white flowers that, in their frail Venetian vase, stand so daintily on my old bureau as I write, doing their best to sweeten my thoughts. Dear was she to me as the birds that out in the old garden yonder sing and sing their best to lift up my leaden heart. She was dear as the Spring itself, she was only less dear than Autumn.
Yes, black confession! after the first passion of her loss, the immediate ache of her young beauty had passed, and I was able to analyse what I really felt, I not only agreed with him, I thanked God for the Major-General! He had saved me from playing the terrible part of executioner. He had just come in time to behead the Lady Jane Grey of our dreams.
I should have no qualms about tightening the rope round the neck of some human monster, or sticking a neat dagger or bullet into a dangerous, treacherous foe, but to kill a dream is a sickening business. It goes on moaning in such a heart-breaking fashion, and you never know when it is dead. All on a sudden some night it will come wailing in the wind outside your window, and you must blacken your heart and harden your face with another strangling grip of its slim appealing throat, another blow upon its angel eyes. Even then it will recover, and you will go on being a murderer, making for yourself day by day a murderer's face, without the satisfaction of having really murdered.
But what of Nicolete? do you exclaim. Have you no thought for her, bleeding her heart away in solitude? Can you so soon forget those appealing eyes? Yes, I have thought for her. Would God that I could bear for her those growing pains of the heart! and I shall never forget those farewell eyes. But then, you see, I had firmly realised this, that she would sooner recover from our separation than from our marriage; that her love for me, pretty and poignant and dramatic while it lasted, was a book- born, book-fed dream, which must die soon or