Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion | Page 8

what Betsey or others do. I have always
been consistent from the first. I told you my regard could amount to no
more than friendship.
H. Nay, Sarah, it was more than half a year before I knew that there
was an insurmountable obstacle in the way. You say your regard is
merely friendship, and that you are sorry I have ever felt anything more
for you. Yet the first time I ever asked you, you let me kiss you; the
first time I ever saw you, as you went out of the room, you turned full
round at the door, with that inimitable grace with which you do
everything, and fixed your eyes full upon me, as much as to say, "Is he
caught?"--that very week you sat upon my knee, twined your arms
round me, caressed me with every mark of tenderness consistent with
modesty; and I have not got much farther since. Now if you did all this
with me, a perfect stranger to you, and without any particular liking to
me, must I not conclude you do so as a matter of course with
everyone?--Or, if you do not do so with others, it was because you took
a liking to me for some reason or other.
S. It was gratitude, Sir, for different obligations.
H. If you mean by obligations the presents I made you, I had given you
none the first day I came. You do not consider yourself OBLIGED to

everyone who asks you for a kiss?
S. No, Sir.
H. I should not have thought anything of it in anyone but you. But you
seemed so reserved and modest, so soft, so timid, you spoke so low,
you looked so innocent--I thought it impossible you could deceive me.
Whatever favors you granted must proceed from pure regard. No
betrothed virgin ever gave the object of her choice kisses, caresses
more modest or more bewitching than those you have given me a
thousand and a thousand times. Could I have thought I should ever live
to believe them an inhuman mockery of one who had the sincerest
regard for you? Do you think they will not now turn to rank poison in
my veins, and kill me, soul and body? You say it is friendship--but if
this is friendship, I'll forswear love. Ah! Sarah! it must be something
more or less than friendship. If your caresses are sincere, they shew
fondness--if they are not, I must be more than indifferent to you. Indeed
you once let some words drop, as if I were out of the question in such
matters, and you could trifle with me with impunity. Yet you complain
at other times that no one ever took such liberties with you as I have
done. I remember once in particular your saying, as you went out at the
door in anger--"I had an attachment before, but that person never
attempted anything of the kind." Good God! How did I dwell on that
word BEFORE, thinking it implied an attachment to me also; but you
have since disclaimed any such meaning. You say you have never
professed more than esteem. Yet once, when you were sitting in your
old place, on my knee, embracing and fondly embraced, and I asked
you if you could not love, you made answer, "I could easily say so,
whether I did or not--YOU SHOULD JUDGE BY MY ACTIONS!"
And another time, when you were in the same posture, and I
reproached you with indifference, you replied in these words, "Do I
SEEM INDIFFERENT?" Was I to blame after this to indulge my
passion for the loveliest of her sex? Or what can I think?
S. I am no prude, Sir.
H. Yet you might be taken for one. So your mother said, "It was hard if
you might not indulge in a little levity." She has strange notions of
levity. But levity, my dear, is quite out of character in you. Your
ordinary walk is as if you were performing some religious ceremony:
you come up to my table of a morning, when you merely bring in the

tea-things, as if you were advancing to the altar. You move in
minuet-time: you measure every step, as if you were afraid of offending
in the smallest things. I never hear your approach on the stairs, but by a
sort of hushed silence. When you enter the room, the Graces wait on
you, and Love waves round your person in gentle undulations,
breathing balm into the soul! By Heaven, you are an angel! You look
like one at this instant! Do I not adore you--and have I merited this
return?
S. I have repeatedly answered that question. You sit and fancy things
out of your own head, and then lay