This desire for ease and luxury
did not conflict with simplicity; he seemed born for all the enjoyment
which the most cultivated society could bestow. He had the power to
spend the income of a fortune worthily; unhappily, he did not have it
to spend. He had written constantly to his betrothed, and when he told
her of the prices he had received for his pictures, he was at a loss
how to make her comprehend the new relations into which he had
grown,--to explain that he was practically as poor as when he first
came to the city. How could he assure her of his desire to end the
engagement in marriage, if he spoke of postponement now that he had an
income beyond his first expectations? Imperceptibly to himself, his
letters became more like intellectual conversations, or essays,
rather,--pleasant enough in themselves, but far different from the
simple and fervent epistles he wrote while the memory of Alice was
fresher. _She_ felt this, although she had not reasoned upon it, and
her sensitive womanly heart was full of vague forebodings.
Would he confess to himself, that, as he looked at her cherished
picture, another face, with a more brilliant air and a more dazzling
beauty, came between him and the silent image before him? Dared he to
think, that, in his frequent visits to Miss Sandford, the ties which
bound him to his betrothed were daily weakening?--that he found a charm
in the very caprices and waywardness of the new love, which the
unvarying constancy and placid affection of the old had never created?
The one put her heart unreservedly into his keeping; she knew nothing
of concealment, and he read her as he would an unsophisticated child;
there was not a nook or cranny in her heart, he thought, that he had
not explored.
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