o
persuade myself that I was not in the least ruffled or agitated by the
scene I had passed through; but I was secretly conscious,
notwithstanding, of a vague dread which I endeavored in vain to stifle.
The defiance which the dwarf had so insolently flung at me, the contrast
he drew between his shriveled frame and my physical advantages, and the
Satanic pride with which he rose superior to his wretched deformities,
gave me no slight cause for uneasiness, although I could not analyze the
nature of the fear that possessed me. All through the night I abandoned
myself to the wildest speculations upon the unaccountable conduct and
designs of my arch-enemy; but as morning advanced that oppressive train
of reflections gave way to more agreeable thoughts, just as the hideous
images of the night-mare vanish before the approach of day.

The prospect of meeting Astraea excluded all other considerations. As
impediments to the flow of a current only serve to increase its force,
so the opposition which the dwarf had thrown in my way gave an
additional impetus to my feelings. The very publicity which our
intercourse had attracted altered our relations to each other. It was no
longer possible to indulge in the romantic dreams, secret looks, and
stolen conversations with which we had hitherto pampered our
imagination; it was necessary to act. I felt the responsibility that was
thus cast upon me; and I confess that I was rather obliged to my
villainous Mephistophiles than angry with him for having, as it were,
brought all my wayward raptures to so immediate and decisive a
conclusion. As to his anathemas and warnings, I treated them as so much
buffoonery on the wrong side of the grotesque. In short, I was too much
engrossed by the approaching interview, and too much intoxicated by the
contemplation of the result to which it inevitably led, to think at all
about that imp of darkness and his ludicrous fulminations. Astraea
occupied brain and heart, and left no room for my tormentor.

I fancied she looked unusually happy that morning; but not so happy as I
was, not so disturbed and unsettled by happiness. She was perfectly
tranquil, and it was evident that nothing had transpired in the interval
to awaken a suspicion of what had occurred between me and the dwarf. She
observed at once that a change had taken place in my manner.

"You are in marvelously high spirits to-day," she said; "but this
exuberant gayety is not quite natural to you."