LORD ALFRED. Read this, if you doubt, and decide. COUSIN JOHN (reading the letter). 'I hear from Bigorre you are there. I am told 'You are going to marry Miss Darcy. Of old —' What is this? LORD ALFRED. Read it on to the end, and you'll know. COUSIN JOHN (continues reading). "When we parted, your last words recorded a vow— 'What you will' Hang it! this smells all over, I swear, Of adventures and violets. Was it your hair You promised a lock of? LORD ALFRED. Read on. You'll discern. COUSIN JOHN (continues). 'Those letters I ask you, my lord, to return.' Humph! . . . Letters! than I guess'd. ... the matter is worse I have my misgivings Miss Darcy perchance 'Will forego one brief page from the summer romance Of her courtship.' 13 Egad! a romance, for my part, I'd forego every page of, and not break my heart! Continue! LORD ALFRED. COUSIN JOHN (reading). And spare you one day from your place 'At her feet? ... Pray forgive me the passing grimace. I wish you had MY place! LORD ALFRED. You ask me, just what I would rather ask you. COUSIN JOHN. You can't go. COUSIN JOHN. Must I? I decline it, though, flat. In an hour the horses will be at the door, leave I must At the jeweller's the bracelet which you broke last night; I must call for the music. 'Dear Alfred is right: 'The black shawl looks best: will I change it? of course 'I can just stop, in passing, to order the horse. 'Then Beau has the mumps, or St. Hubert knows what; • Will I see the dog-doctor?' Hang Beau! I will Oh, tell Mrs. Darcy that . . . lend me your wits, Jack!... the deuce! Can you not stretch your genius to fit a friend's use ? Excuses are clothes which, when ask'd unawares, Good Breeding to naked Necessity spares. COUSIN JOHN. My dear fellow, Matilda is jealous, you know, as Othello. You joke. LORD ALFRED. COUSIN JOHN. I am serious. Why go to Serchon? Don't ask me. John. LORD ALFRED. I have not a choice, my dear Besides, shall I own a strange sort of desire, Of youth and romance, in whose shadowy light drawn By the rosy, reluctant auroras of Love: In short, from the dead Past the grave-stone to move; Of the years long departed for ever to take No! were it but To make sure that the Past from the Future is shut, It were worth the step back. Do you think we should live With the living so lightly, and learn to survive That wild moment in which to the grave and its gloom We consign'd our heart's best, if the doors of the tomb Were not lock'd with a key which Fate keeps for our sake? If the dead could return, or the corpses awake? COUSIN JOHN. Nonsense! nonsense! LORD ALFRed. Not wholly. The man who gets up A fill❜d guest from the banquet, and drains off his cup, Sees the last lamp extinguish'd with cheerfulness, goes Well contented to bed, and enjoys its repose. Heard the music, and yet miss'd the tune; who hath wasted One part of life's grand possibilities; — friend, COUSIN JOHN. I see you remember that cynical story |