Signor conjuror who has a thousand arts for conjuring with nature was generally considered to have done that night his most ancient and reputedly fabulous trick—the dream of poets, rarely witnessed anywhere, and almost too wonderful for credence in a haunt of our later civilization. Yet there it was: the sudden revelation of the intense divinity to a couple fused in oneness by his apparition, could be perceived of all having man and woman in them; love at first sight, was visible. ‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’ And if nature, character, circumstance, and a maid clever at dressing her mistress’s golden hair, did prepare them for Love’s lightning-match, not the less were they proclaimingly alight and in full blaze. Likewise, Time, imperious old gentleman though we know him to be, with his fussy reiterations concerning the hour for bed and sleep, bowed to the magical fact of their condition, and forbore to warn them of his passing from night to day. He had to go, he must, he has to be always going, but as long as he could he left them on their bank by the margin of the stream, where a shadow-cycle of the eternal wound a circle for them and allowed them to imagine they had thrust that old driver of the dusty high-road quietly out of the way. They were ungrateful, of course, when the performance of his duties necessitated his pulling them up beside him pretty smartly, but he uttered no prophecy of ever intending to rob them of the celestial moments they had cut from him and meant to keep between them ‘for ever,’ and fresh.
The hour was close on the dawn of a March morning. Alvan assisted at the cloaking and hooding of Clotilde. Her relatives were at hand; they hung by while he led her to the stairs and down into a spacious moonlight that laid the traceries of the bare tree-twigs clear-black on grass and stone.
‘A night to head the Spring!’ said Alvan. ‘Come.’
He lifted her off the steps and set her on the ground, as one who had an established right to the privilege and she did not contest it, nor did her people, so kingly was he, arrayed in the thunder of the bolt which had struck the pair. These things, and many things that islands know not of, are done upon continents, where perhaps traditions of the awfulness of Love remain more potent in society; or it may be, that an island atmosphere dispossesses the bolt of its promptitude to strike, or the breastplates of the islanders are strengthened to resist the bolt, or no tropical heat is there to create and launch it, or nothing is to be seen of it for the haziness, or else giants do not walk there. But even where he walked, amid a society intellectually fostering sentiment, in a land bowing to see the simplicity of the mystery paraded, Alvan’s behaviour was passing heteroclite. He needed to be the kingly fellow he was, crowned by another kingly fellow—the lord of hearts—to impose it uninterruptedly. ‘She is mine; I have won her this night!’ his bearing said; and Clotilde’s acquiesced; and the worthy couple following them had to exhibit a copy of the same, much wondering. Partly by habit, and of his natural astuteness, Alvan peremptorily usurped a lead that once taken could not easily be challenged, and would roll him on a good tideway strong in his own passion and his lady’s up against the last defences—her parents. A difficulty with them was foreseen. What is a difficulty!—a gate in the hunting-field: an opponent on a platform: a knot beneath a sword: the dam to waters that draw from the heavens. Not desiring it in this case—it would have been to love the difficulty better than the woman—he still enjoyed the bracing prospect of a resistance, if only because it was a portion of the dowry she brought him. Good soldiers (who have won their grades) are often of a peaceful temper and would not raise an invocation to war, but a view of the enemy sets their pugnacious forces in motion, the bugle fills their veins with electrical fire, till they are as racers on the race-course.—His inmost hearty devil was glad of a combat that pertained to his possession of her, for battle gives the savour of the passion to win, and victory dignifies a prize: he was, however, resolved to have it, if possible, according to the regular arrangement of such encounters, formal, without snatchings, without rash violence; a victory won by personal ascendancy, reasoning eloquence.
He laughed to hear her say, in answer to a question as to her present feelings: ‘I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!’ The comparison had been used or implied to him before.
‘No!’ said he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, ‘no more of the quadruped man! You tempt him—may I tell you that? Why, now, this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking the short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, and we should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents and friends to run about for the wits they lose in running. But no! No more scandals. That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright serenity, to be mad: just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more prolonged it is the greater the readiness for wild delirium at the end of the draught. But no!’ his voice deepened—‘the handsome face of the orb that lights us would be well enough were it only a gallop between us two. Dearest, the orb that lights us two for a lifetime must be taken all round, and I have been on the wrong side of the moon.
I have seen the other face of it—a visage scored with regrets, dead dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the like!—sunless, waterless, without a flower! It is the old volcano land: it grows one bitter herb: if ever you see my mouth distorted you will know I am revolving a taste of it; and as I need the antidote you give, I will not be the centaur to win you, for that is the land where he stables himself; yes, there he ends his course, and that is the herb he finishes by pasturing on. You have no dislike of metaphors and parables? We Jews are a parable people.’
‘I am sure I do understand…’ said Clotilde, catching her breath to be conscientious, lest he should ask her for an elucidation.
‘Provided always that the metaphor be not like the metaphysician’s treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise!—You were going to add?’
‘I was going to say, I think I understand, but you run away with me still.’
‘May the sensation never quit you!’
‘It will not.’
‘What a night!’ Alvan raised his head: ‘A night cast for our first meeting and betrothing! You are near home?’
‘The third house yonder in the moonlight.’
‘The moonlight lays a white hand on it!’
‘That is my window sparkling.’
‘That is the vestal’s cresset. Shall I blow it out?’
‘You are too far. And it is a celestial flame, sir!’
‘Celestial in truth! My hope of heaven! Dian’s crescent will be ever on that house for me, Clotilde. I would it were leagues distant, or the door not forbidden!’
‘I could minister to a good knight humbly.’
Alvan bent to her, on a sudden prompting:
‘When do father and mother arrive?’
‘To-morrow.’
He took her hand. ‘To-morrow, then! The worst of omens is delay.’
Clotilde faintly gasped. Could he mean it?—he of so evil a name in her family and circle!
Her playfulness and pleasure in the game of courtliness forsook her.
‘Tell me the hour when it will be most convenient to them to receive me,’ said Alvan.
She stopped walking in sheer fright.
‘My father—my mother?’ she said, imaging within her the varied horror of each and the commotion.
‘To-morrow or the day after—not later. No delays! You are mine, we are one; and the sooner my cause is pleaded the better for us both. If I could step in and see them this instant, it would
