Self control Part 22

Mrs De Courcy's encouraging a.s.sertion was confirmed by the behaviour of Laura herself; for she maintained her usual serene cheerfulness; nor could even the eye of love detect more than one short fit of distraction; and then the subject of thought seemed any thing rather than pleasing retrospect, or glad antic.i.p.ation. The company of his friends, Harriet's pointedly favourable reception of Mr Bolingbroke's a.s.siduities, and the rise of his own hopes, all enlivened Montague to unusual vivacity, and led him to a deed of daring which he had often projected, without finding courage to perform it. He thought, if he could speak of Hargrave to Laura, and watch her voice, her eye, her complexion, all his doubts would be solved. With this view, contriving to draw her a little apart, he ventured, for the first time, to name his rival; mentioned Lady Pelham's hint; and, faltering, asked Laura whether he had not done wrong in resisting it.

'Really,' answered Laura with a very _nave_ smile, and a very faint blush, 'I don't wonder you hesitate in offering me such a piece of flattery as to ask my opinion.'

'Do not tax me with flattering you,' said De Courcy earnestly; 'I would as soon flatter an apostle; but tell me candidly what you think.'

'Then, candidly,' said Laura, raising her mild unembarra.s.sed eye to his, 'I think you did right, perfectly right, in refusing your countenance to a person of Colonel Hargrave's character. While vice is making her encroachments on every hand, it is not for the friends of virtue to remove the ancient landmarks.'

Though this was one of the stalest pieces of morality that ever Montague had heard Laura utter, he could scarcely refrain from repaying it by clasping her to his heart. Convinced that her affections were free, he could not contain his rapture, but exclaimed, 'Laura, you are an angel!

and, if I did not already love beyond all power of expression, I should be'--He raised his eyes to seek those of Laura, and met his mother's, fixed on him with an expression that compelled him to silence.--'You should be in love with me;' said Laura, laughing, and filling up the sentence as she imagined it was meant to conclude. 'Well, I shall be content with the second place.'

Mrs De Courcy, who had approached them, now spoke on some indifferent subject, and saved her son from a very awkward attempt at explanation.

She drew her chair close to Laura, and soon engaged her in a conversation so animated, that Montague forgot his embarra.s.sment, and joined them with all his natural ease and cheerfulness. The infection of his ease and cheerfulness Laura had ever found irresistible. Flashes of wit and genius followed the collision of their minds; and the unstudied eloquence, the poetic imagery of her style, sprung forth at his touch, like blossoms in the steps of the fabled Flora.

Happy with her friends, Laura almost forgot the disagreeable adventure of the morning; and, every look and word mutually bestowing pleasure, the little party were as happy as affection and esteem could make them, when Lady Pelham, with an aspect like a sea fog, and a voice suitably forbidding, inquired whether her niece would be pleased to go home, or whether she preferred sitting chattering there all night. Laura, without any sign of noticing the rudeness of this address, rose, and said she was quite ready to attend her Ladys.h.i.+p. In vain did the De Courcys entreat her to prolong her visit till the morning. To dare to be happy without her concurrence, was treason against Lady Pelham's dignity; and unfortunately she was not in a humour to concur in the joy of any living thing. De Courcy's reserve towards her new favourite she considered as a tacit reproof of her own cordiality; and she had just such a conviction that the reproof was deserved, as to make her thoroughly out of humour with the reprover, with herself, and consequently with everybody else.

Determined to interrupt pleasure which she would not share, the more her hosts pressed her stay, the more she hastened her departure; and she mingled her indifferent good nights to them with more energetic reprimands to the tardiness of her coachman.

'Thank heaven,' said she, thrusting herself into the corner of her carriage with that jerk in her motion which indicates a certain degree of irritation, 'to-morrow we shall probably see a civilized being.' A short pause followed. Laura's plain integrity and prudence had gained such ascendancy over Lady Pelham, that her niece's opinion was to her Ladys.h.i.+p a kind of second conscience, having, indeed, much the same powers as the first. Its sanction was necessary to her quiet, though it had not force to controul her actions. On the present occasion she wished, above all things, to know Laura's sentiments; but she would not condescend to ask them directly. 'Colonel Hargrave's manners are quite those of a gentleman,' she resumed. The remark was entirely ineffectual; for Laura coolly a.s.sented, without inquiring whether he were the civilized being whom Lady Pelham expected to see. Another pause.

'Colonel Hargrave will be at Walbourne to-morrow,' said Lady Pelham, the tone of her voice sharpening with impatience. 'Will he, Ma'am?' returned Laura, without moving a muscle. 'If Miss Montreville has no objections,'

said Lady Pelham, converting by a toss of her head and a twist of her upper lip, the words of compliment into an insult. 'Probably,' said Laura, with a smile, 'my objections would make no great difference.'--'Oh, to be sure!' returned Lady Pelham, 'it would be lost labour to state them to such an obstinate, unreasonable person as I am!

Well, I believe you are the first who ever accused me of obstinacy.' If Lady Pelham expected a compliment to her pliability, she was disappointed; for Laura only answered, 'I shall never presume to interfere in the choice of your Ladys.h.i.+p's visitors.'

That she should be thus compelled to be explicit was more than Lady Pelham's temper could endure. Her eyes flas.h.i.+ng with rage, 'Superlative humility indeed!' she exclaimed with a sneer; but, awed, in spite of herself, from the free expression of her fury, she muttered it within her shut teeth in a sentence of which the words 'close' and 'jesuitical'

alone reached Laura's ear. A long and surly silence followed; Lady Pelham's pride and anger struggling with her desire to learn the foundation and extent of the disapprobation which she suspected that her conduct excited. The latter, at last, partly prevailed; though Lady Pelham still disclaimed condescending to direct consultation.

'Pray, Miss Montreville,' said she, 'if Colonel Hargrave's visits were to _you_, what mighty objections might your sanct.i.ty find to them?'--Laura had long ago observed that a slight exertion of her spirit was the best _quietus_ to her aunt's ill humour; and, therefore, addressing her with calm austerity, she said, 'Any young woman, Madam, who values her reputation, might object to Colonel Hargrave's visits, merely on the score of prudence. But even my "superlative humility" does not reconcile me to company which I despise; and my "sanct.i.ty," as your Ladys.h.i.+p is pleased to call it, rather shrinks from the violator of laws divine and human.'

Lady Pelham withdrew her eyes to escape a glance which they never could stand; but, bridling, she said, 'Well, Miss Montreville, I am neither young nor sanctimonious, therefore your objections cannot apply to Colonel Hargrave's visits to me; and I am determined,' continued she, speaking as if strength of voice denoted strength of resolution, 'I am determined, that I will not throw away the society of an agreeable man, to gratify the whims of a parcel of narrow-minded bigots.'

To this attack Laura answered only with a smile. She smiled to see herself cla.s.sed with the De Courcys; for she had no doubt that they were the 'bigots' to whom Lady Pelham referred. She smiled, too, to observe that the boasted freedom of meaner minds is but a poor attempt to hide from themselves the restraint imposed by the opinions of the wise and good.

The carriage stopped, and Laura took sanctuary in her own apartment; but at supper she met her aunt with smiles of unaffected complacency, and, according to the plan which she invariably pursued, appeared to have forgotten Lady Pelham's fit of spleen; by that means enabling her aunt to recover from it with as little expence to her pride as possible.

CHAPTER XXV

Lady Pelham was not disappointed in her expectation of seeing Colonel Hargrave on the following day. He called at Walbourne while her Ladys.h.i.+p was still at her toilette; and was shown into the drawing-room, where Laura had already taken her station. She rose to receive him, with an air which shewed that his visit gave her neither surprise nor pleasure; and, motioning him to a distant seat, quietly resumed her occupation.

Hargrave was a little disconcerted. He expected that Laura would shun him, with marks of strong resentment, or perhaps with the agitation of offended love; and he was prepared for nothing but to entreat the audience which she now seemed inclined to offer him.

Lovers are so accustomed to accuse ladies of cruelty, and to find ladies take pleasure in being so accused, that unlooked-for kindness discomposes them; and a favour unhoped is generally a favour undesired.

The consciousness of ill desert, the frozen serenity of Laura's manner, deprived Hargrave of courage to use the opportunity which she seemed voluntarily to throw in his way. He hesitated, he faltered; while, all unlike her former self, Laura appeared determined that he should make love, for she would not aid his dilemma even by a comment on the weather. All the timidity which formerly marked her demeanour, was now transferred to his; and, arranging her work with stoical composure, she raised her head to listen, as Hargrave approaching her stammered out an incoherent sentence expressive of his unalterable love, and his fears that he had offended almost beyond forgiveness.

Laura suffered him to conclude without interruption; then answered, in a voice mild but determined, 'I had some hopes, Sir, from your knowledge of my character and sentiments, that, after what has pa.s.sed, you could have entertained no doubts on this subject.--Yet, lest even a shadow of suspense should rest on your mind, I have remained here this morning on purpose to end it. I sincerely grieve to hear that you still retain the partiality you have been pleased to express, since it is now beyond my power to make even the least return.'

The utmost bitterness of reproach would not have struck so chilly on the heart of Hargrave as these words, and the manner in which they were uttered. From the principles of Laura he had indeed dreaded much; but he had feared nothing from her indifference. He had feared that duty might obtain a partial victory; but he had never doubted that inclination would survive the struggle. With a mixture of doubt, surprise, and anguish, he continued to gaze upon her after she was silent; then starting, he exclaimed--'I will not believe it; it is impossible. Oh, Laura, choose some other way to stab, for I cannot bear this!'--'It pains me,' said Laura, in a voice of undissembled concern, 'to add disappointment to the pangs which you cannot but feel; yet it were most blameable now to cherish in you the faintest expectation.'--'Stop,'

cried Hargrave, vehemently, 'if you would not have me utterly undone. I have never known peace or innocence but in the hope of your love; leave me a dawning of that hope, however distant. Nay, do not look as if it were impossible. When you thought me a libertine, a seducer--all that you can now think me, you suffered me to hope. Let me but begin my trial now, and all woman-kind shall not lure me from you.'

'Ah,' said Laura, 'when I dreamt of the success of that trial, a strange infatuation hung over me. Now it has pa.s.sed away for ever. Sincerely do I wish and pray for your repentance, but I can no longer offer to reward it. My desire for your reformation will henceforth be as disinterested as sincere.'

Half distracted with the cutting calmness of her manner, so changed since the time when every feature spoke the struggles of the heart, when the mind's whole strength seemed collected to resist its tenderness, Hargrave again vehemently refused to believe in her indifference. ''Tis but a few short months,' he cried, grasping her hand with a violence that made her turn pale; ''tis but a few short months since you loved me with your whole soul, since you said that your peace depended upon my return to virtue. And dare you answer it to yourself to cast away the influence, the only influence that can secure me?'

'If I have any influence with you,' returned Laura, with a look and an att.i.tude of earnest entreaty, 'let it but this once prevail, and then be laid aside for ever. Let me persuade you to the review of your conduct; to the consideration of your prospects as an accountable being, of the vengeance that awaits the impenitent, of the escape offered in the gospel. As you value your happiness, let me thus far prevail. Or if it will move you more,' continued she, the tears gus.h.i.+ng from her eyes, 'I will beseech you to grant this, my only request; in memory of a love that mourned your unworthiness almost unto death.'

The sight of her emotions revived Hargrave's hopes; and, casting himself at her feet, he pa.s.sionately declared, while she shuddered at the impious sentiment, that he asked no heaven but her love, and cared not what were his fate if she were lost. 'Ah, Sir,' said she, with pious solemnity, 'believe me, the time is not distant when the disappointment of this pa.s.sion will seem to you a sorrow light as the baffled sports of childhood. Believe the testimony of one who but lately drew near to the gates of the grave. On a death-bed, guilt appears the only real misery; and lesser evils are lost amidst its horror like shadows in a midnight-gloom.'

The ideas which Laura was labouring to introduce into the mind of Hargrave were such as he had of late too successfully endeavoured to exclude. They had intruded like importunate creditors; till, oft refused admittance, they had ceased to return. The same arts which he had used to disguise from himself the extent of his criminality, he now naturally employed to extenuate it in the sight of Laura. He a.s.sured her that he was less guilty than she supposed; that she could form no idea of the force of the temptation which had overcome him; that Lady Bellamer was less the victim of his pa.s.sions than of her own; he vehemently protested that he despised and abhorred the wanton who had undone him; and that, even in the midst of a folly for which he now execrated himself, his affections had never wandered from their first object. While he spoke, Laura in confusion cast down her eyes, and offended modesty suffused her face and neck with crimson. She could indeed form no idea of a heart which, attached to one woman, could find any temptation in the allurements of another. But when he ended, virtuous indignation flas.h.i.+ng in her countenance, 'For shame, Sir!' said she. 'If any thing could degrade you in my eyes it were this mean attempt to screen yourself behind the partner of your wickedness. Does it lessen your guilt that it had not even the poor excuse of pa.s.sion; or think you that, even in the hours of a weakness for which you have given me such just reason to despise myself, I could have prized the affections of a heart so depraved? You say you detest your crime; I fear you only detest its punishment; for, were you really repentant, my opinion, the opinion of the whole world, would seem to you a trifle unworthy of regard, and the utmost bitterness of censure be but an echo to your own self-upbraidings.'

Hargrave had no inclination to discuss the nature of repentance. His sole desire was to wrest from Laura some token, however slight, of returning tenderness. For this purpose he employed all the eloquence which he had often found successful in similar attempts. But no two things can be more different in their effects, than the language of pa.s.sion poured into the sympathizing bosom of mutual love, or addressed to the dull ear of indifference. The expressions which Laura once thought capable of warming the coldest heart seemed now the mere ravings of insanity; the lamentations which she once thought might have softened rocks, now appeared the weak complainings of a child for his lost toy.

With a mixture of pity and disgust she listened and replied; till the entrance of Lady Pelham put a period to the dialogue, and Laura immediately quitted the room.

Lady Pelham easily perceived that the conversation had been particular; and Hargrave did not long leave her in doubt as to the subject. He acquainted her with his pretensions to Laura, and begged her sanction to his addresses; a.s.suring her that his intercourse with Lady Bellamer was entirely broken off, and that his marriage would secure his permanent reformation. He complimented Lady Pelham upon her liberality of sentiment and knowledge of the world; from both of which he had hopes, he said, that she would not consider one error as sufficient to blast his character. Lady Pelham made a little decent hesitation on the score of Lady Bellamer's prior claims; but was a.s.sured that no engagement had ever subsisted there. 'She hoped Lord Lincourt would not be averse.' She was told that Lord Lincourt anxiously desired to see his nephew settled.

'She hoped Colonel Hargrave was resolved that his married life should be irreproachable. Laura had a great deal of sensibility, it would break her heart to be neglected; and Lady Pelham was sure, that in that case the thought of having consented to the dear child's misery would be more than she could support!' Her Ladys.h.i.+p was vanquished by an a.s.surance, that for Laura to be neglected by her happy husband was utterly impossible.

'Laura's inclinations then must be consulted; every thing depended upon her concurrence, for the sweet girl had really so wound herself round Lady Pelham's heart, that positively her Ladys.h.i.+p could not bear to give her a moment's uneasiness, or to press her upon a subject to which she was at all averse.' And, strange as it may seem, Lady Pelham at that moment believed herself incapable of distressing the person whom, in fact, she tormented with ceaseless ingenuity! Hargrave answered by confessing his fears that he was for the present less in favour than he had once been; but he disclosed Laura's former confessions of partiality, and insinuated his conviction that it was smothered rather than extinguished.

Lady Pelham could now account for Laura's long illness and low spirits; and she listened with eager curiosity to the solution of the enigma, which had so long perplexed her. She considered whether she should relate to the lover the sorrows he had caused. She judged (for Lady Pelham often _judged_ properly) that it would be indelicate thus to proclaim to him the extent of his power; but, with the usual inconsistency between her judgment and her practice, in half an hour she had informed him of all that she had observed, and hinted all that she suspected. Hargrave listened, was convinced, and avowed his conviction that Lady Pelham's influence was alone necessary to secure his success.

Her Ladys.h.i.+p said, 'that she should feel some delicacy in using any strong influence with her niece, as the amiable orphan had no friend but herself, had owed somewhat to her kindness, and might be bia.s.sed by grat.i.tude against her own inclination. The fortune which she meant to bequeath to Laura might by some be thought to confer a right to advise; but, for her part, she thought her little all was no more than due to the person whose tender a.s.siduities filled the blank which had been left in her Ladys.h.i.+p's maternal heart by the ingrat.i.tude and disobedience of her child.' This sentiment was p.r.o.nounced in a tone so pathetic, and in language so harmonious, that, though it did not for a moment impose upon her hearer, it deceived Lady Pelham herself; and she shed tears, which she actually imagined to be forced from her by the mingled emotions of grat.i.tude and of disappointed tenderness.

Lady Pelham had now entered on a subject inexhaustible; her own feelings, her own misfortunes, her own dear self. Hargrave, who in his hours of tolerable composure was the most polite of men, listened, or appeared to listen, with unconquerable patience, till he fortunately recollected an appointment which his interest in her Ladys.h.i.+p's conversation had before banished from his mind; when he took his leave, bearing with him a very gracious invitation to repeat his visit.

With him departed Lady Pelham's fit of sentimentality; and, in five minutes, she had dried her eyes, composed the paragraph which was to announce the marriage of Lord Lincourt (for she killed off the old peer without ceremony) to the lovely heiress of the amiable Lady Pelham; taken possession of her niece's barouche and four, and heard herself announced as the benefactress of this new wonder of the world of fas.h.i.+on. She would cut off her rebellious daughter with a s.h.i.+lling; give her up to the beggary and obscurity which she had chosen, and leave her whole fortune to Lady Lincourt; for so, in the fulness of her content, she called Laura. After some time enjoying her niece's prospects, or to speak more justly her own, she began to think of discovering how near they might be to their accomplishment; and, for this purpose, she summoned Laura to a conference.

Lady Pelham loved nothing on earth but herself; yet vanity, gratified curiosity, and, above all, the detection of a mere human weakness reducing Laura somewhat more to her own level awakened in her breast an emotion resembling affection; as, throwing her arms round her niece, she, in language half sportive, half tender, declared her knowledge of Laura's secret, and reproached her with having concealed it so well.

Insulted, wronged, and forsaken by Hargrave, Laura had kept his secret inviolable, for she had no right to disclose it; but she scorned, by any evasion, to preserve her own. Glowing with shame and mortification, she stood silently shrinking from Lady Pelham's looks; till, a little recovering herself, she said, 'I deserve to be thus humbled for my folly in founding my regards, not on the worth of their object, but on my own imagination; and more, if it be possible, do I deserve, for exposing my weakness to one who has been so ungenerous as to boast of it. But it is some compensation to my pride,' continued she, raising her eyes, 'that my disorder is cured beyond the possibility of relapse.' Lady Pelham smiled at Laura's security, which she did not consider as an infallible sign of safety. It was in vain that Laura proceeded solemnly to protest her indifference. Lady Pelham could allow for self-deceit in another's case, though she never suspected it in her own. Vain were Laura's comments upon Hargrave's character; they were but the fond revilings of offended love. Laura did not deny her former preference; she even owed that it was the sudden intelligence of Hargrave's crimes which had reduced her to the brink of the grave; therefore Lady Pelham was convinced that a little perseverance would fan the smothered flame; and perseverance, she hoped, would not be wanting. Nevertheless, as her Ladys.h.i.+p balanced her fondness for contradicting by her aversion to being contradicted, and as Laura was too much in earnest to study the qualifying tone, the conference concluded rather less amicably than it began; though it ended by Lady Pelham's saying, not very consistently with her sentiments an hour before, that she would never cease to urge so advantageous a match, conceiving that she had a right to influence the choice of one whom she would make the heiress of forty thousand pounds. Laura was going to insist that all influence would be ineffectual, but her aunt quitted her without suffering her to reply.

She would have followed to represent the injustice of depriving Mrs Herbert of her natural rights; but she desisted on recollecting that Lady Pelham's purposes were like wedges, never fixed but by resistance.

The time had been when Lady Pelham's fortune would have seemed to Hargrave as dust in the balance, joined with the possession of Laura. He had gamed, had felt the want of money; and money was no longer indifferent to him. But Laura's dower was still light in his estimation, compared with its weight in that of Lambert, to whom he accidentally mentioned Lady Pelham's intention. That prudent person calculated that 40,000 would form a very handsome addition to a fund upon which he intended to draw pretty freely. He had little doubt of Hargrave's success; he had never known any woman with whom such a lover could fail.

He thought he could lead his friend to bargain for immediate possession of part of his bride's portion, and, for certainty of the rest in reversion, before parting with his liberty. He allowed two, or perhaps even three months for the duration of Laura's influence; during which time he feared he should have little of her husband's company at the gaming-table; but from thenceforth, he judged that the day would be his own, and that he should soon possess himself of Hargrave's property, so far as it was alienable. He considered that, in the meantime, Laura would furnish attraction sufficient to secure Hargrave's stay at --, and he trusted to his own dexterity for improving that circ.u.mstance to the best advantage. He failed not, therefore, to encourage the lover's hopes, and bestowed no small ridicule on the idea that a girl of nineteen should desert a favourite on account of his gallantry.

Cool cunning would engage with fearful odds against imprudence, if it could set bounds to the pa.s.sions, as well as direct their course. But it is often deceived in estimating the force of feelings which it knows only by their effects. Lambert soon found that he had opened the pa.s.sage to a torrent which bore all before it. The favourite stimulus found, its temporary subst.i.tute was almost disregarded; and Hargrave, intoxicated with his pa.s.sion, tasted sparingly of the poisoned cup which his friend designed for him. His time and thoughts were again devoted to Laura, and gaming was only sought as a relief from the disappointment and vexation which generally attended his pursuit. The irritation of his mind, however, made amends for the lessened number of opportunities for plundering him, by rendering it easier to take advantage of those which remained.

The insinuating manners and elegant person of Hargrave gained daily on the favour of Lady Pelham; for the great as well as the little vulgar are the slaves of mere externals. She permitted his visits at home and his attendance abroad, expatiating frequently on the liberality of sentiment which she thus displayed. At first these encomiums on her own conduct were used only to disguise from herself and others her consciousness of its impropriety; but she repeated them till she actually believed them just, and considered herself as extending a charitable hand to rescue an erring brother from the implacable malignity of the world.

She was indefatigable in her attempts to promote his success with Laura.

She lost no opportunity of pressing the subject. She obstinately refused to be convinced of the possibility of overcoming a strong prepossession.

Laura, in an evil hour for herself, thoughtlessly replied, that affection was founded on the belief of excellence, and must of course give way when the foundation was removed. This observation had just fallacy sufficient for Lady Pelham's purpose. She took it for her text, and harangued upon it with all the zeal and perseverance of disputation.

She called it Laura's theory; and insisted that, like other theorists, she would shut her eyes against the plainest facts, nay, stifle the feelings of her own mind, rather than admit what might controvert her opinion. She cited all the instances which her memory could furnish of agricultural, and chemical, and metaphysical theorism; and, with astonis.h.i.+ng ingenuity, contrived to draw a parallel between each of them and Laura's case. It was in vain that Laura qualified, almost retracted her unlucky observation. Her adversary would not suffer her to desert the untenable ground. Delighted with her victory, she returned again and again to the attack, after the vanquished had appealed to her mercy; and much more than 'thrice she slew the slain.'

Sick of arguing about the possibility of her indifference, Laura at length confined herself to simple a.s.sertions of the fact. Lady Pelham at first merely refused her belief; and, with provoking pity, rallied her niece upon her self-deceit; but, finding that she corroborated her words by a corresponding behaviour to Hargrave, her Ladys.h.i.+p's temper betrayed its accustomed infirmity. She peevishly reproached Laura with taking a coquettish delight in giving pain; insisted that her conduct was a tissue of cruelty and affectation; and upbraided her with disingenuousness in pretending an indifference which she could not feel.

'And does your Ladys.h.i.+p communicate this opinion to Colonel Hargrave?'

said Laura, one day, fretted almost beyond her patience by a remonstrance of two hours continuance. 'To be sure I do,' returned Lady Pelham. 'In common humanity I will not allow him to suffer more from your perverseness than I can avoid.' 'Well, Madam,' said Laura, with a sigh and a shrug of impatient resignation, 'nothing remains but that I shew a consistency, which, at least is not common to affectation.'

Lady Pelham's representations had their effect upon Hargrave. They brought balm to his wounded pride, and he easily suffered them to counteract the effect of Laura's calm and uniform a.s.surances of her indifference. While he listened to these, her apparent candour and simplicity, the regret she expressed at the necessity of giving pain, brought temporary conviction to his mind; and, with transports of alternate rage and grief, he now execrated her inconstancy, then his own unworthiness; now abjured her, then the vices which had deprived him of her affection. But the joint efforts of Lady Pelham and Lambert always revived hopes sufficient to make him continue a pursuit which he had not indeed the fort.i.tude to relinquish.

His love (if we must give that name to a selfish desire, mingled at times with every ungentle feeling), had never been so ardent. The well-known principle of our nature which adds charms to what is unattainable, lent new attractions to Laura's really improved loveliness. The smile which was reserved for others seemed but the more enchanting; the hand which he was forbidden to touch seemed but the more soft and snowy; the form which was kept sacred from his approach, bewitched him with more resistless graces. Hargrave had been little accustomed to suppress any of his feelings, and he gave vent to this with an entire neglect of the visible uneasiness which it occasioned to its subject. He employed the private interviews, which Lady Pelham contrived to extort for him, in the utmost vehemence of complaint, protestation, and entreaty. He laboured to awaken the pity of Laura; he even condescended to appeal to her ambition; and persevered, in spite of unequivocal denials, till Laura, disgusted, positively refused ever again to admit him without witnesses.