_Ger._ Ah! at least I have the inclination, it will be your own fault if ever my actions and my wishes dissociate, or Geraldine refuse a boon when Florian is the suitor. [_Exit._ _Flor._ (_looking after her_) Geraldine! too kind, too lovely Geraldine, ah! sir, is she not admirable? _De Val._ She has been accounted so by many in your absence. I cannot estimate her beauty, but I know her virtue; and the last fond wish left clinging to this heart is Geraldine's felicity. I shall endeavour to secure it, by uniting her in marriage with a worthy object. _Flor._ Sir!--marriage did you say? Gracious heaven! Marriage! _De Val._ What is it that surprizes you? I can assure you, Geraldine already has been addressed by lovers. _Flor._ To doubt it were a blasphemy against perfection. Oh! Sir, it is not that--oh! no. _De Val._ Wherefore, my dear Florian, so much emotion? Does the idea of Geraldine's marriage afflict you? _Flor._ I am not such an ingrate--her happiness is the prayer of my soul to heaven, and I would perish to insure it. _De Val._ (_after a pause, during which he regards the agitated Florian with tender earnestness._) Young man, I have long since determined to address you with a brief recital of circumstances necessary to your future decisions in life. Every word of that recital must draw with it a life-drop from my heart, for I shall speak to you of the past, and recollection to me is agony. The trial we once have considered as inevitable, it is fruitless to defer. Draw yourself a seat, and afford me for a few minutes your fixt attention. (_Florian_ presents a chair to the _Count_, and then seats himself.) _De Val._ Florian, you now behold me, such as I have seemed, even from your infancy--a suffering, querulous, cheerless, hopeless, broken-hearted man--one who has buried all the energies of his nature, and only preserves a few of its charities tremblingly alive. It was not with me always thus--I once possessed a mind and a body vigorously moulded, a heart for enterprize, and an arm for achievement. Grief, not time, has palsied those endowments. Born to exalted rank, and luxuriously bread, like the new-fledged eaglet rushing from his nest at once against the sun, eager, elate, and confident, I entered upon life. _Flor._ Ah! that malignant clouds should obscure so bright a dawn! _De Val._ My spirit panted for a career of arms--civil war then desolated France, and, at the age of twenty, I embraced the cause of my religion and my king. Fortune, prodigal of her flatteries, twined my brow with clustering laurels, and at the close of my first campaign, my sovereign's favor and the people's love already hailed me by a hero's title. Fatigued with glory--then--ah! Florian! then it was I welcom'd love!--a first, a last, an only and eternal passion! (_Pauses with emotion._) _Flor._ Nay, sir, desist--these recollections shake your mind too strongly.