You
may call what joins us together love, if you like, but it's not worth
getting excited about. You take me because you were jealous of Sophie,
and because you've compromised yourself. I take you because you're
beautiful to look at, and--because nobody else would have me! We shall
have plenty of money, which will help us along. But what is there in our
relations to make us either enthusiastic or miserable?--Come along!"
This was the consummation of Cornelia's passionate hopes and torturing
fears, of her dishonorable intriguing and reckless self-desecration. She
became very calm all of a sudden, and, without making any rejoinder, she
"came along" as he bade her, and they descended the hill.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FOUND.
Sophie, having carried her point regarding her wedding-dress, had
nothing better to do after Cornelia had left her than to give herself up
to reverie. She had a private purpose to sit up until her sister's
return, that she might hear all about Bressant, and why he had stayed
away so long and sent no word. That he had returned, expecting to meet
her at the ball, she entertained not the slightest doubt; nor was there
at this time any suspicion or misgiving in her mind about his fidelity
and love.
Mankind's ignorance of the future is, beyond dispute, a blessing; yet we
could wish, for Sophie, that so much presentiment of what was to come
might be hers as to lead her to concentrate all possible happy thoughts
into the few hours that remained wherein she might yet be happy.
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