Her lover was equally impassioned, but his passion was mingled
with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the connection in
levity, for he had often heard his brother-officers boast of
their village conquests, and thought some triumph of the kind
necessary to his reputation as a man of spirit. But he was too
full of youthful fervor. His heart had not yet been rendered
sufficiently cold and selfish by a wandering and a dissipated
life: it caught fire from the very flame it sought to kindle, and
before he was aware of the nature of his situation he became
really in love.
What was he to do? There were the old obstacles which so
incessantly occur in these heedless attachments. His rank in
life, the prejudices of titled connections, his dependence upon a
proud and unyielding father, all forbade him to think of
matrimony; but when he looked down upon this innocent being, so
tender and confiding, there was a purity in her manners, a
blamelessness in her life, and a beseeching modesty in her looks
that awed down every licentious feeling. In vain did he try to
fortify himself by a thousand heartless examples of men of
fashion, and to chill the glow of generous sentiment with that
cold derisive levity with which he had heard them talk of female
virtue: whenever he came into her presence she was still
surrounded by that mysterious but impassive charm of virgin
purity in whose hallowed sphere no guilty thought can live.
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