Why should it have ever done so?
Though I almost dreamed it had, because you filled my life so many years
with your rich image, I thought you might have felt me, like an
apparition, stealing around this dwelling often in the dark and rain,
content with the ray of light your window threw upon the deserted
street. Now I see that I was a weak dunce, whose passion nature lent no
nerve of hers to convey even to your notice. Better for me that I had
hugged the debasing reality of my gold, and lost my eyes to everything
but its comfort!"
He looked towards the door. Vesta sat down in the fairy rocker, and
detained him.
"You have told me the feeling you think you had, Mr. Milburn. Poor as we
Custises are now, it will not do to be proud. How did you ever think
that feeling could be returned by me? My youth, my connections,
everything, would forbid me, without haughtiness, to see a suitor in
you. Then, you took no means to turn my attention towards you. You could
have been neighborly, had you desired. You did not even wear the
commonest emblems of a lover--"
She paused. Milburn said to himself:
"Ah! that accursed Hat."
The interruption ruffled his temper:
"I have had reasons, also proud, Miss Custis, to be consistent with my
perpetual self here. I will put the substantial merits of my case to
you, since I see that I am not likely to make myself otherwise
attractive. This house is already mine.
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