'But they say he goes
nowhere. It was almost presumptuous in me to ask him, yet I did so
because you wished it.'
'I never shall know him,' said Lady Bertie and Bellair, with some
vexation.
'He interests you,' said Tancred, a little piqued.
'I had so many things to say to him,' said her ladyship.
'Indeed!' said Tancred; and then he continued, 'I offered him every
inducement to come, for I told him it was to meet you; but perhaps if
he had known that you had so many things to say to him, he might have
relented.'
'So many things! Oh! yes. You know he has been a great traveller; he has
been everywhere; he has been at Jerusalem.'
'Fortunate man!' exclaimed Tancred, half to himself. 'Would I were
there!'
'Would we were there, you mean,' said Lady Bertie, in a tone of
exquisite melody, and looking at Tancred with her rich, charged eyes.
His heart trembled; he was about to give utterance to some wild words,
but they died upon his lips. Two great convictions shared his being:
the absolute necessity of at once commencing his pilgrimage, and the
persuasion that life, without the constant presence of this sympathising
companion, must be intolerable. What was to be done? In his long
reveries, where he had brooded over so many thoughts, some only of which
he had as yet expressed to mortal ear, Tancred had calculated, as he
believed, every combination of obstacle which his projects might have
to encounter; but one, it now seemed, he had entirely omitted, the
influence of woman.
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