Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion | Page 8

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 them to my charge. There is not a word of truth in your suspicions.
H. Did I not overhear the conversation down-stairs last night, to which you were a party? Shall I repeat it?
S. I had rather not hear it!
H. Or what am I to think of this story of the footman?
S. It is false, Sir, I never did anything of the sort.
H. Nay, when I told your mother I wished she wouldn't * * * * * * * * * (as I heard she did) she said "Oh, there's nothing in that, for Sarah very often * * * * * *," and your doing so before company, is only a trifling addition to the sport.
S. I'll call my mother, Sir, and she shall contradict you.
H. Then she'll contradict herself. But did not you boast you were "very persevering in your resistance to gay young men," and had been "several times obliged to ring the bell?" Did you always ring it? Or did you get into these dilemmas that made it necessary, merely by the demureness of your looks and ways? Or had nothing else passed? Or have you two characters, one that you palm off upon me, and another, your natural one,