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I shall know by-and-by, thanks to my merry Virginia jade, who shall be arrayed in resplendent hues, and throned in a golden frame, if she but feed my curiosity generously enough." Next day, in the afternoon, having bustled through my daily programme of business, I betook myself with curious pleasure to my appointment with Pintal.
On the second day of my stay with him, he was showing me over his house, where, hanging against the wall in a spare room, I found, not the Pintal picture, but a Chinese copy of it, faithful in its every detail. There were the several alterations I had suggested, and there the rich, warm colors that Pintal's taste had chosen. Of course, it was a copy.
Presently the woman, poking with the stick, found something under the ashes. With her naked hands she greedily dug it out; it was a tin shaving-case. Another moment, and Pintal had snatched it from her grasp, torn it open, and had a naked razor in his hand. I wrested it from him, as he fairly foamed, and dragged him from the place.
So they were married under the name of Pintal, bestowed upon his favorite English clerk by the adventurous first patron at Carthagena, who had found the boy provided with only a 'purser's name, as sailors term it.
Could it be but his morbidly repellant pride, his jealous guarding of the domestic privacies, his vigilant pacing up and down forever before the close-drawn curtain of the heart? was there no Bluebeard's chamber there? No! Pride was all the matter, pride was the Spartan fox that tore the vitals of Pintal, while he but bit his lips, and bowed, and passed.
I confessed my impatience for the interval to pass; for my interest was now fully awakened and very lively; so well-informed and so polished a gentleman, so accomplished and so fluent, so ill-starred and sad, so every way a man with a history! I saw much of Pintal after this, and he sometimes visited me at my office.
"Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes; "And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!" Then Pintal paced briskly to and fro a few turns across the narrow floor of his tent, and presently stopping, said, his first cheerfulness, with its unwonted smile, returning, "But I must tell you why I should be happy today.
A few days after that, I took leave of them on board a merchant ship bound for England, and with a heavy-hearted prayer sped them on their way. On the voyage, as Pintal stood once, trembling in a storm, near the mainmast, a flash of lightning transfixed him. That was well! He had been distinguished by his sorrows, and was worthy of that special messenger.
Camilla Allverris i Pintal." He held these contrasted certificates of Fortune, her mocking visiting-cards, when she called on him in palace and in cabin, one in each hand for a moment; and bitterly smiling, and shaking his head, turned from one to the other.
Then suddenly he let them fall to the ground, and, burying his face in his hands, was roughly shaken through all his frame by a great gust of agony. I laid my hand tenderly on his shoulder: "But, Pintal," I said, "the Lady Angelica, tell me why she chose that course." In a moment the man was fiercely aroused. "Ah, true! I had forgotten that delectable passage in my story.
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