She
had not broken faith with him--not even in her thoughts--for she had
no eyes for anybody in the world but him! He held out his hand to
her.
"I will forget what I heard to-day," he said, "and do not let us
ever speak again of what has been."
He was quite sincere in saying this, for he really wished to forget.
But our memory is not subject to our will. Do what he would, he
could not banish the consumptive poet from his mind, nor the
diplomat with the silly, handsome face, and other figures more
shadowy than these two, but none the less annoying. He learned to
know that most torturing form of jealousy--the jealousy of the past-
-against which it is hopeless to struggle, which will not be
dispelled, and which, in its unalterable steadfastness, mocks at the
despair of the heart that is forever searching after new grounds for
torment, and yet cries aloud when it finds what it sought. His
imagination wandered perpetually from the lovely pastel in the
yellow salon to the new ebony bed, with its inlaid ivory scenes in
the bedroom, and saw or guessed things between these two points that
made him shudder.
Thus, New Year's night found him in a very gloomy frame of mind, and
the letter he wrote to Schrotter expressed a still deeper dejection
than that of the year before.
Pages:
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489