y
withdrawn again--and so long as I could look at her, I cared not what I
listened to. She was only speaking what she had been educated to speak;
it was not in her words that I sought the clue to her thoughts and
sensations; but in the tone of her voice, in the language of her eyes,
in the whole expression of her face. All these contained indications
which reassured me. I tried everything that respect, that the persuasion
of love could urge, to win her consent to our meeting again; but she
only answered with repetitions of what she had said before, walking
onward rapidly while she spoke. The servant, who had hitherto lingered
a few paces behind, now advanced to her young mistress's side, with a
significant look, as if to remind me of my promise. Saying a few parting
words, I let them proceed: at this first interview, to have delayed them
longer would have been risking too much.

As they walked away, the servant turned round, nodding her head and
smiling, as if to assure me that I had lost nothing by the forbearance
which I had exercised. Margaret neither lingered nor looked back. This
last proof of modesty and reserve, so far from discouraging, attracted
me to her more powerfully than ever. After a first interview, it was the
most becoming virtue she could have shown. All my love for her before,
seemed as nothing compared with my love for her now that she had left
me, and left me without a parting look.

What course should I next pursue? Could I expect that Margaret, after
what she had said, would go out again at the same hour on the morrow?
No: she would not so soon abandon the modesty and restraint that she had
shown at our first interview. How communicate with her? how manage most
skilfully to make good the first favourable impression which vanity
whispered I had already produced? I determined to write to her.

How different was the writing of that letter, to the writing of those
once-treasured pages of my romance, which I had now abandoned for ever!
How slowly I worked; how cautiously and diffidently I built up sentence
after sentence, and doubtingly set a stop here, and laboriously rounded
off a paragraph there, when I toiled in the service of ambition! Now,
when I had given myself up to the service of love, how rapidly the pen
ran over the paper; how much more freely and smoothly the desires of the
heart flowed into words, than the thoughts of the mind! Composition was
an instinct now, an art no longer. I could