How is it with you, Cloudy? Has no
fair maiden been able to teach you to forget your boy-love for
Jacquelina?"
Cloudy winced, but tried to cover his embarrassment with a laugh.
"Oh! I have been in love forty dozen times. I'm always in love; my heart
is continually going through a circle from one fit to another, like the
sun through the signs of the zodiac; only it never comes to anything."
"Well, at least little Jacko is forgotten, which is one congratulatory
circumstance."
"No, she is not forgotten; I will not wrong her by saying that she is,
or could be! All other loves are merely the foreign ports, which my
heart visits transiently now and then. Lina is its native home. I don't
know how it is. With most cases of disappointment, such as yours with
Miss Le Roy, I suppose the regret may be short-lived enough; but when an
affection has been part and parcel of one's being from infancy up; why,
it is in one's soul and heart and blood, so to speak--is identical with
one's consciousness, and inseparable from one's life."
"Do you ever see her?"
"See her! yes; but how?--at each return from a voyage. I may see
her once, with an iron grating between us; she disguised with her
black shrouding robe and veil, and thinking that she must suffer
here to expiate the fate of Dr.
Pages:
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370