Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/97

Rh himself the while, "that I am about to do these things?" But no; the crushed feeling and the utter desolation that possessed him gave up a plain answer on this point. For an hour he continued the plodding occupation in hand before dismissing the moonshee, and then, pacing up and down the room, could think over the announcement in the bitterness of his heart. Once he stopped and took up the letter from the table to see if any doubt could be gleaned from it; but the facts were too plain to admit of consolation on this score. This was not mere station gossip; besides, it was only too plainly corroborated by what had gone before. Olivia's silence, Kirke's sarcastic, triumphant manner, were now plainly accounted for. "People call me the lucky major," he said bitterly; "and I am the object of envy to half the youngsters in the country — what a satire is this on the falseness of appearances! no whipped cuckold could feel meaner than I do now." Then the thought came up whether he was not paying the penalty for his modesty. Could it be that Olivia had accepted her cousin out of pique because he had not declared himself? This foolish idea, however, was soon dismissed; though the young man said to himself, with a sort of savage joy, that after all the real Olivia was something less noble than the image he had carried so long in his heart. "I kept back my tale of love because I thought it would offend her gentle breast to hear it while mourning for her husband; and lo! all the while she was already consoling herself with another. Nor is it my Olivia who would be satisfied with the love of such a man as Kirke so hard, narrow, and selfish." Here his better judgment told him that he was talking nonsense; it was no wonder a woman and a cousin should fall in love with so splendid a soldier. "By heaven, if he is unkind to her, I will kill him!" But no; Yorke's conscience told him that this would not happen. He was hard and cruel, but not to his own kind.

"Well," he said at last, "what does it matter? My idol is shattered; but I was a fool to carry about so unsubstantial a thing. I have my profession, and I suppose, like everybody else, I shall get over the disappointment. At any rate, there is no need to pose in the character of the jilted lover. No one knows what a fool I have been; even Spragge thinks my old flame, as he calls it, was burnt out long ago; and no one shall now discover my secret."

Nevertheless he felt that he could not have faced the regimental mess-dinner that evening, where the approaching marriage of the commanding officer would certainly be the engrossing topic, and was glad that he had an engagement to dine out with his old friend General Tartar, at whose house he found himself taking an unconcerned share in the conversation, and a steady hand at whist afterwards.

Only one allusion was made to the approaching event, when his host, next to whom Yorke sat, said to him, "So our pretty widow is about to console herself. Well, I shouldn't have thought Kirke was a marrying man; but if he was to commit himself in this way at all, he couldn't have done better." Tartar was a confirmed old bachelor himself, who married, a few years afterwards, a widow with a large family.

Yorke replied, in an unconcerned voice, that he supposed Mrs. Falkland would be well off, as she had her first husband's property as well as her father's.

"Falkland didn't leave a penny — he was notoriously liberal to prodigality — but her father must have saved something; although you mustn't suppose," continued Sir Montague, who had the reputation of being very fond of money, and to be serving in India because it was such a favourable field for profitable investments, "that a man living by himself in India cant spend his income easily enough. Well, Kirke will find the money useful; he won't have a rupee more than he has need for."

This was an allusion to the fact that Kirke was supposed to be heavily in debt; but Yorke did not care to discuss the private affairs of his commanding officer with a third party, and the conversation dropped.

 

day Yorke received a letter from Kirke himself. It was chiefly on regimental business, but contained at the end the following paragraph: —

"You will, of course, have heard of my approaching marriage. My wife — for so I may call her, since the marriage is to take place this afternoon — will write to you herself in a few days, to explain why the matter has been kept so quiet, even from our mutual friends; but I must take this opportunity to thank you on her behalf for your many kindnesses. She will always retain a grateful recollection of them, and continue to regard you as a warm friend. I don't believe she will write the promised letter notwithstanding," said Yorke to