第19章

"Love is like a dizziness," says the old song.Love is something else - it is the most selfish feeling in existence.Of course, Idon't allude to the fraternal or the friendly, or any other such nonsensical old-fashioned trash that artless people still believe in, but to the real genuine article that Adam felt for Eve when he first saw her, and which all who read this - above the innocent and unsusceptible age of twelve - have experienced.And the fancy and the reality are so much alike, that they amount to about the same thing.The former perhaps, may be a little short-lived; but it is just as disagreeable a sensation while it lasts se its more enduring sister.Love is said to be blind, and it also has a very injurious effect on the eyesight of its victims - an effect that neither spectacles nor oculists can aid in the slightest degree, making them see whether sleeping or waking, but one object, and that alone.

I don't know whether these were Mr.Malcolm or Ormiston's thoughts, as he leaned against the door-way, and folded his arms across his chest to await the shining of his day-star.In fact, I am pretty sure they were not: young gentlemen, as a general thing, not being any more given to profound moralizing in the reign of His Most Gracious Majesty, Charles II., than they are at the present day; but I do know, that no sooner was his bosom friend and crony, Sir Norman Kingsley, out of eight, than he forgot him as teetotally an if he had never known that distinguished individual.His many and deep afflictions, his love, his anguish, and his provocations; his beautiful, tantalizing, and mysterious lady-love; his errand and its probable consequences, all were forgotten; and Ormiston thought of nothing or nobody in the world but himself and La Masque.La Masque! La Masque! that was the theme on which his thoughts rang, with wild variations of alternate hope and fear, like every other lover since the world began, and love was first an institution."As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," truly, truly it is an odd and wonderful thing.And you and I may thank our stars, dear readers, that we are a great deal too sensible to wear our hearts in our sleeves for such s bloodthirsty dew to peck at.Ormiston's flame was longer-lived than Sir Norman's; he had been in love a whole month, and had it badly, and was now at the very crisis of a malady.Why did she conceal her face - would she ever disclose it - would she listen to him - would she ever love him? feverishly asked Passion; and Common Sense (or what little of that useful commodity he had left) answered - probably because she was eccentric - possibly she would disclose it for the same reason; that he had only to try and make her listen; and as to her loving him, why, Common Sense owned he had her there.

I can't say whether the adage! "Faint heart never won fair lady!"was extant in his time; but the spirit of it certainly was, and Ormiston determined to prove it.He wanted to see La Masque, and try his fate once again; and see her he would, if he had to stay there as a sort of ornamental prop to the house for a week.He knew he might as well look for a needle in a haystack as his whimsical beloved through the streets of London - dismal and dark now as the streets of Luxor and Tadmor in Egypt; and he wisely resolved to spare himself and his Spanish leathers boots the trial of a one-handed game of "hide-and-go-to-seek." Wisdom, like Virtue, is its own reward; and scarcely had he come to this laudable conclusion, when, by the feeble glimmer of the house-lamps, he saw a figure that made his heart bound, flitting through the night-gloom toward him.He would have known that figure on the sands of Sahara, in an Indian jungle, or an American forest - a tall, slight, supple figure, bending and springing like a bow of steel, queenly and regal as that of a young empress.It was draped in a long cloak reaching to the ground, in color as black as the night, and clasped by a jewel whose glittering flash, he saw even there; a velvet hood of the same color covered the stately head; and the mask - the tiresome, inevitable mask covered the beautiful - he was positive it was beautiful - face.He had seen her a score of times in that very dress, flitting like a dark, graceful ghost through the city streets, and the sight sent his heart plunging against his side like an inward sledge-hammer.Would one pulse in her heart stir ever so faintly at sight of him? Just as he asked himself the question, and was stepping forward to moot her, feeling very like the country swain in love - "hot and dry like, with a pain in his side like" - he suddenly stopped.Another figure came forth from the shadow of an opposite house, and softly pronounced her name.

It was a short figure - a woman's figure.He could not see the face, and that was an immense relief to him, and prevented his having jealousy added to his other pains sad tribulations.La Masque paused as well as he, and her soft voice softly asked:

"Who calls?"

"It is I, madame - Prudence."

"Ah! I am glad to meet you.I have been searching the city through for you.Where have you been?""Madame, I was so frightened that I don't know where I fled to, and I could scarcely make up my mind to come back at all.I did feel dreadfully sorry for her, poor thing! but you know, Madame Masque, I could do nothing for her, and I should not have come back, only I was afraid of you.""You did wrong, Prudence," said La Masque, sternly, or at least as sternly as so sweet a voice could speak; "you did very wrong to leave her in such a way.You should have come to me at once, and told me all.""But, madame, I was so frightened!"