Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/227

 thinking she had no right, on any account, to discover his secrets, unless by his permission. Valentine, after several changes of countenance, and being in such a situation he could not utter his words, at last recovered himself enough to beg David to tell him all he knew of Cynthia, which he generously complied with, even so far as to inform him of her adventure with my Lord, and her refusal of himself; but as I think it equally as unnecessary as it is difficult to attempt any description of what Valentine felt during David's narration, I shall leave that to my reader's own imagination. The result of this conversation was, Valentine's earnest request to his sister immediately to write to Cynthia: she knew where Cynthia's cousin lived; and as she was perfectly a stranger to the refusing her brother anything he desired, it was no sooner asked than complied with; but when David, Valentine, and Camilla separated that night to go to bed, various were their reflections, various were their situations. Camilla's mind was on the rack at the consideration that David had offered himself to Cynthia; he was pleasing himself with the thoughts of the other's refusing him, since he was now acquainted with Camilla; and Valentine spent the whole night in being tossed about between hopes and fears. Cynthia's refusal of my Lord and David, sometimes gave him the utmost pleasure, in flattering his hopes that he might be the cause of it; but the higher his joy was raised on this account, the greater was his torment when he feared some man she had met with since he saw her might possess her heart. In short, the great earnestness with which he wished to be remembered by her, made him but the more diffident in believing he was so; and his pains and pleasures were increased or lessened every moment by his own imagination, as much as objects are to the natural eye, by