5. V.
I kept my tryst. I was to meet Edith Linsey at
Saratoga in July—the last month of the probation by
which I had won a right to her love. I had not spoken
to her, or written, or seen her (save, unknown to
her, in the moment I have described), in the three
long years to which my constancy was devoted. I
had gained the usual meed of industry in my profession,
and was admitted to its practice. I was on the
threshold of manhood; and she had promised, before
heaven, here to give me heart and hand.
I had parted from her at twelve on that night three
years, and, as the clock struck, I stood again by her
side in the crowded ballroom of Saratoga.
“Good God! Mr. Slingsby!” she exclaimed, as I
put out my hand.
“Am I so changed that you do not know me, Miss
Linsey?” I asked, as she still looked with a wondering
gaze into my face—pressing my hand, however,
with real warmth, and evidently under the control,
for the moment, of the feelings with which we had
parted.
“Changed, indeed! Why, you have studied yourself
to a skeleton! My dear Philip, you are ill!”
I was—but it was only for a moment. I asked her
hand for a waltz, and never before or since came wit
and laughter so freely to my lip. I was collected, but,
at the same time, I was the gayest of the gay; and
when everybody had congratulated me, in her hearing,
on the school to which I had put my wits in my
long apprenticeship to the law, I retired to the gallery
looking down upon the garden, and cooled my brow
and rallied my sinking heart.
The candles were burning low, and the ball was
nearly over, when I entered the room again, and requested
Edith to take a turn with me on the colonnade.
She at once assented, and I could feel by her
arm in mine, and see by the fixed expression on her
lip, that she did so with the intention of revealing to
me what she little thought I could so well anticipate.
“My probation is over,” I said, breaking the silence
which she seemed willing to prolong, and which
had lasted till we had twice measured the long, colonnade.
“It was three years ago to-night, I think, since we
parted.” She spoke in an absent and careless tone, as
if trying to work out another more prominent thought
in her mind.
“Do you find me changed?” I asked.
“Yes—oh, yes! very!”
“But I am more changed than I seem, dear Edith!”
She turned to me as if to ask me to explain myself.
“Will you listen to me while I tell you how?”
“What can you mean? Certainly.”
“Then listen, for I fear I can scarce bring myself
to repeat what I am going to say. When I first learned
to love you, and when I promised to love you for
life, you were thought to be dying, and I was a boy.
I did not count on the future, for I despaired of your
living to share it with me, and, if I had done so, I
was still a child, and knew nothing of the world. I
have since grown more ambitious, and, I may as well
say at once, more selfish and less poetical. You will
easily divine my drift. You are poor, and I find myself,
as you have seen to-night, in a position which
will enable me to marry more to my advantage; and,
with these views, I am sure I should only make you
miserable by fulfilling my contract with you, and you
will agree with me that I consult our mutual happiness
by this course—don't you think?”
At this instant I gave a signal to Job, who approached
and made some sensible remarks about the weather;
and, after another turn or two, I released Miss Linsey's
arm, and cautioning her against the night air, left her
to finish her promenade and swallow her own projected
speech and mine, and went to bed.
And so ended my first love!
