 | CHAPTER XVII. Howard Pinckney |  |
“Fanny indisposed,” said Pinckney, with a return
of tenderness; “what can be the matter with her.
Could her friends have forced her to make that communication
to me?” No! let me dismiss her from
my mind; but I will go to this bridal; should she be
there she shall see—aye, and feel how entirely as
strangers we meet. The talk it will make! I thought
Langdale was coming to this. I wonder if she loves
him; not a whit, I fear. She's a splendid creature.
I should say that I am victimised all round the compass,—but
I'll to the bridal—as groomsman. When
shall I be a groom? Never—by God, I hope never!”
Pinckney rung for his servant, and desired him to
city; and at the very moment he made his last remark
of never being a groom, if his heart had spoken
as loudly as his lips, it would have developed the fact
that he wanted a good excuse to be near Fanny, if
only to show her, he said to himself, feeling self-detected
by the emotion, how entirely as a stranger I
shall act towards her.
Here his servant entered, and announced the fact
that in half an hour the steamboat would start.
Pinckney ordered him immediately to get his baggage
in readiness, and to proceed with it to the boat
—but he scarcely had issued the order ere he countermanded
it.
“She'll be certain that I want an explanation,” he
said to himself, “if I go. What if she does, she'll
soon be mistaken; she'll find that I am to be Langdale's
groomsman. I go—I go. Indisposed—she
may not be in the city at all. What can trouble. I
don't care what troubles her; I'll go.”
And with this misanthropical reflection he hurried
his servant off with his baggage, wrote a hasty note
to Mateman, requesting him to follow, and leaping
into a hack desired the driver to hurry, for fear he
might be left behind.
| CHAPTER XVII. Howard Pinckney | |