What is it that surprizes you? I can assure you, Geraldine
already has been addressed by lovers.

_Flor._ To doubt it were a blasphemy against perfection. Oh! Sir, it is
not that--oh! no.

_De Val._ Wherefore, my dear Florian, so much emotion? Does the idea of
Geraldine's marriage afflict you?

_Flor._ I am not such an ingrate--her happiness is the prayer of my soul
to heaven, and I would perish to insure it.

_De Val._ (_after a pause, during which he regards the agitated Florian
with tender earnestness._) Young man, I have long since determined to
address you with a brief recital of circumstances necessary to your
future decisions in life. Every word of that recital must draw with it a
life-drop from my heart, for I shall speak to you of the past, and
recollection to me is agony. The trial we once have considered as
inevitable, it is fruitless to defer. Draw yourself a seat, and afford
me for a few minutes your fixt attention.

(_Florian_ presents a chair to the _Count_, and then seats
himself.)

_De Val._ Florian, you now behold me, such as I have seemed, even from
your infancy--a suffering, querulous, cheerless, hopeless,
broken-hearted man--one who has buried all the energies of his nature,
and only preserves a few of its charities tremblingly alive. It was not
with me always thus--I once possessed a mind and a body vigorously
moulded, a heart for enterprize, and an arm for achievement. Grief, not
time, has palsied those endowments. Born to exalted rank, and
luxuriously bread, like the new-fledged eaglet rushing from his nest at
once against the sun, eager, elate, and confident, I entered upon life.

_Flor._ Ah! that malignant clouds should obscure so bright a dawn!

_De Val._ My spirit panted for a career of arms--civil war then
desolated France, and, at the age of twenty, I embraced the cause of my
religion and my king. Fortune, prodigal of her flatteries, twined my
brow with clustering laurels, and at the close of my first campaign, my
sovereign's favor and the people's love already hailed me by a hero's
title. Fatigued with glory--then--ah! Florian! then it was I welcom'd
love!--a first, a last, an only and eternal passion! (_Pauses with
emotion._)

_Flor._ Nay, sir, desist--these recollections shake your mind too
strongly.

_De Val._ No, no--let me proceed. I can command myself--Florian! I wooed
and won an angel for my bride--my expression is not a lover's
rhapsody--at this distant period,