Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/98

 herself. She could not but know she was in the full meridian of her beauty. Her summer, so to speak, was still in its July; the fruit bright, glowing, and mature; not a leaf yet changed in colour with forewarning of decay. She might take her choice of a dozen noble names whenever she would, and she felt her heart beat while she wondered why this consideration should of late have been so often present to her mind. It could only arise from an anxiety to settle Cerise, she argued with herself; there could be no other reason. Impossible! absurd! No—no—a thousand times—No!

She went carefully back over her past life, analysing, with no foolish, romantic, tendencies, but in a keen, impartial spirit, the whole history of her feelings. She acknowledged, with a certain hard triumph, that in her young days she had never loved. Likings, flirtations, passing fancies she had indulged in by hundreds, a dozen at a time, but to true feminine affection her nearest approach had been that sentiment of regard which she entertained for her husband. She did not stop to ask herself if this was love, as women understand the word.

And was she to be always invulnerable? Was she indeed incapable of that abstraction, that self-devotion which made the happiness and the misery of nearly all her sex? She did ask herself this question, but she did not answer it; though Pierrot, still watching her out of one eye, must have seen her blush.

Certainly, none of her declared suitors had hitherto inspired it. Least of all, he to whom the world had lately given her as his affianced wife. Brave he was, no doubt, chivalrous in thought and action; stupid enough besides; yes, quite stupid enough for a husband! generous too, and considerate—but oh! not like the kind, unselfish, indulgent old heart she mourned for in widow's weeds all those years ago. She could almost have cried again now, and yet she laughed when she thought of the united ages of her late husband and her present adorer. Was it her destiny, then, thus ever to captivate the affections of old men? and were their wrongs to be avenged at last by her own infatuation for a lover many years younger than herself? Again the burning blushes rose to her brow, and though Pierrot was