"Maria, the Chevalier is the only judge; and I am certain you will not, as a woman, allow your feelings to get the better of you. I have a great deal more to suffer on your account than you can possibly feel." "I do not see that." "It is so, and should be seen by you. If your work should in any respect fail, imagine what that failure would cost me." I looked up in utter indignation, but was disarmed by the expression of his countenance; a vague sadness possessed it, a certain air of tender resignation; his hauteur had melted, though his manner retained its distance. "As if it could be a failure!" I exclaimed; "why, we already know how much it is!" "I do not, Auchester, and I am not unwilling to confess my ignorance. If our symphony even prove worthy of our Cecilia, I shall still be anxious." "Why, Florimond?" she demanded, wistfully. "On account of your health. You know what you promised me." "Not to write for a year. That is easy to say." "But not so easy to do. You make every point an extreme, Maria." "I cannot think what you mean about my health." "You cannot?" She blushed lightly and frowned a shade. "I have told you, Florimond, how often I have had that pain before." "And you told me also what they said." His tones were now so grave that I could not bear to conjecture their significance. He went on. "I do not consider, Maria, that for a person of genius it is any hardship to be discouraged from too much effort, especially when the effect will become enhanced by a matured experience." "You are very unkind, Florimond." Indeed, I thought so, too. "I only care to please you." "No, Maria, you had not a thought of me in writing." "And yet you yourself gave me the first idea. But you are right; I wrote without reference to any one, and because I burned to do so." "And you burn less now for it? Tell me that." "I do not burn any longer, I weary for it to be over; I desire to hear it once, and then you may take it away, and I will never see it any more." "That is quite as unnatural as the excessive desire,--to have fatigued of what you loved. But, Maria, I trust this weariness of yours will not appear before the Chevalier, after all his pains and interest." "I hope so too, Florimond; but I do not know." It did not. The next day the Chevalier came over to Cecilia, and slept that night in the village. The tremendous consequence of the next twenty-four hours might almost have erased, as a rolling sea, all identical remembrance; and, indeed, it has sufficed to leave behind it what is as but a picture once discerned, and then forever darkened,--the cool, early romance of the wreaths and garlands (for we all rose at dawn to decorate the entrance, the corridors, the hall, the reception-room), the masses of May-bloom and lilies that arrived with the sun; the wild beauty overhanging everything; the mysterious freshness I have mentioned, or some effects just so conceived, before.