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I asked you once, but you put me off." Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just after Myrtilla's letter about his poems. "Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I feared an unreasonable scene like this "
Or what is worse, eternal shame? Eternal confusion on my honour? What excuse, what evasions, vows and protestations will convince him, or appease Myrtilla's jealousy; Myrtilla, my sister, and Philander's wife? Oh God! that cruel thought will put me into ravings; I have a thousand streams of killing reflections which flow from that original fountain!
Another would have pleased the indifferent Myrtilla's soul as well, but mine was fitted for no other man; only Philander, the adored Philander, with that dear form, that shape, that charming face, that hair, those lovely speaking eyes, that wounding softness in his tender voice, had power to conquer Sylvia; and can this be a sin? Oh, heavens, can it?
Nor will I think Myrtilla's virtue lessen'd for your mistaken opinion of it, and she may be as much in vain pursu'd, perhaps, by the Prince Cesario, as Sylvia shall be by the young Philander: the envying world talks loud, 'tis true; but oh, if all were true that busy babbler says, what lady has her fame? What husband is not a cuckold? Nay, and a friend to him that made him so?
My soul's eternal joy, my Sylvia! what have you done, and oh how durst you, knowing my fond heart, try it with so fatal a stroke? What means this severe letter? and why so eagerly at this time? Oh the day! Is Myrtilla's virtue so defended? Is it a question now whether she is false or not? Oh poor, oh frivolous excuse!
But it was tacitly understood that there was nothing further to be said on that subject, and that the news of Myrtilla's life could hardly again take any more excitingly personal form than the bric-a-brac excitements of art or literature, though indeed art and literature were, to be just to them, far more than bric-a-brac in the life of Myrtilla Williamson.
So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival. Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go. "Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said. "Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief involuntarily in her voice.
And it is in vain, my too subtle brother, you think to build the trophies of your conquests on the ruin of both Myrtilla's fame and mine: oh how dear would your inglorious passion cost the great unfortunate house of the Beralti, while you poorly ruin the fame of Myrtilla, to make way to the heart of Sylvia!
She it was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch by Myrtilla's own hand.
Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his bookshelves with suspicious energy. At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine.
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