"So young!" said she; "so young to be lost thus!"
I was intensely moved. I felt, I knew, that she had a message for me. I
felt that hers was the only intellect in the world to which I would have
submitted mine; and, for one moment, all the angel and all the devil in me
wrestled for the mastery. If I could but have trusted her one moment....
No! all the pride, the spite, the suspicion, the prejudice of years, rolled
back upon me. "An aristocrat! and she, too, the one who has kept me from
Lillian!" And in my bitterness, not daring to speak the real thought within
me, I answered with a flippant sneer--
"Yes, madam! like Cordelia, so young, yet so untender!--Thanks to the
mercies of the upper classes!"
Did she turn away in indignation? No, by Heaven! there was nothing upon her
face but the intensest yearning pity. If she had spoken again she would
have conquered; but before those perfect lips could open, the thought of
thoughts flashed across me.
"Tell me one thing! Is my cousin George to be married to ----" and I
stopped.
"He is."
"And yet," I said, "you wish to turn me back from dying on a barricade!"
And without waiting for a reply, I hurried down the street in all the fury
of despair.
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