Her look even,if closely examined,bears this interpretation.It is that of studied hypocrisy or startled guilt,rather than of refined sensibility or conscious innocence."She defied anyone to read her thoughts?"she once told me."Do they then require concealing?"Iimprudently asked her.The command over herself is surprising.She never once betrays herself by any momentary forgetfulness,by any appearance of triumph or superiority to the person who is her dupe,by any levity of manner in the plenitude of her success;it is one faultless,undeviating,consistent,consummate piece of acting.Were she a saint on earth,she could not seem more like one.Her hypocritical high-flown pretensions,indeed,make her the worse:but still the ascendancy of her will,her determined perseverance in what she undertakes to do,has something admirable in it,approaching to the heroic.She is certainly an extraordinary girl!Her retired manner,and invariable propriety of behaviour made me think it next to impossible she could grant the same favours indiscriminately to every one that she did to me.Yet this now appears to be the fact.She must have done the very same with C----,invited him into the house to carry on a closer intrigue with her,and then commenced the double game with both together.She always "despised looks."
This was a favourite phrase with her,and one of the hooks which she baited for me.Nothing could win her but a man's behaviour and sentiments.Besides,she could never like another--she was a martyr to disappointed affection--and friendship was all she could even extend to any other man.All the time,she was making signals,playing off her pretty person,and having occasional interviews in the street with this very man,whom she could only have taken so sudden and violent a liking to him from his looks,his personal appearance,and what she probably conjectured of his circumstances.Her sister had married a counsellor--the Miss F----'s,who kept the house before,had done so too--and so would she."There was a precedent for it."Yet if she was so desperately enamoured of this new acquaintance,if he had displaced THE LITTLE IMAGE from her breast,if he was become her SECOND "unalterable attachment"(which Iwould have given my life to have been)why continue the same unwarrantable familiarities with me to the last,and promise that they should be renewed on my return (if I had not unfortunately stumbled upon the truth to her aunt)and yet keep up the same refined cant about her old attachment all the time,as if it was that which stood in the way of my pretensions,and not her faithlessness to it?"If one swerves from one,one shall swerve from another"--was her excuse for not returning my regard.Yet that which I thought a prophecy,was I suspect a history.
She had swerved twice from her avowed engagements,first to me,and then from me to another.If she made a fool of me,what did she make of her lover?I fancy he has put that question to himself.I said nothing to him about the amount of the presents;which is another damning circumstance,that might have opened my eyes long before;but they were shut by my fond affection,which "turned all to favour and to prettiness."She cannot be supposed to have kept up an appearance of old regard to me,from a fear of hurting my feelings by her desertion;for she not only shewed herself indifferent to,but evidently triumphed in my sufferings,and heaped every kind of insult and indignity upon them.I must have incurred her contempt and resentment by my mistaken delicacy at different times;and her manner,when I have hinted at becoming a reformed man in this respect,convinces me of it."She hated it!"She always hated whatever she liked most.She "hated Mr.C----'s red slippers,"when he first came!One more count finishes the indictment.She not only discovered the most hardened indifference to the feelings of others;she has not shewn the least regard to her own character,or shame when she was detected.When found out,she seemed to say,"Well,what if I am?I have played the game as long as I could;and if I could keep it up no longer,it was not for want of good will!"Her colouring once or twice is the only sign of grace she has exhibited.
Such is the creature on whom I had thrown away my heart and soul-one who was incapable of feeling the commonest emotions of human nature,as they regarded herself or any one else."She had no feelings with respect to herself,"she often said.She in fact knows what she is,and recoils from the good opinion or sympathy of others,which she feels to be founded on a deception;so that my overweening opinion of her must have appeared like irony,or direct insult.My seeing her in the street has gone a good way to satisfy me.Her manner there explains her manner in-doors to be conscious and overdone;and besides,she looks but indifferently.She is diminutive in stature,and her measured step and timid air do not suit these public airings.I am afraid she will soon grow common to my imagination,as well as worthless in herself.Her image seems fast "going into the wastes of time,"like a weed that the wave bears farther and farther from me.Alas!thou poor hapless weed,when I entirely lose sight of thee,and for ever,no flower will ever bloom on earth to glad my heart again!
