As Alexis had remarked, it was a lovely summer night, and after
quitting the Devonshire I stood idly on the pavement, and gazed about
me in simple enjoyment of the scene.
The finest trees in Hyde Park towered darkly in front of me, and above
them was spread the star-strewn sky, with a gibbous moon just showing
over the housetops to the left. I could not see a soul, but faintly
from the distance came the tramp of a policeman on his beat. The
hour, to my busy fancy, seemed full of fate. But it was favorable to
meditation, and I thought, and thought, and thought. Was I at the
beginning of an adventure, or would the business, so strangely
initiated, resolve itself into something prosaic and mediocre? I had a
suspicion--indeed, I had a hope--that adventures were in store for me.
Perhaps peril also. For the sinister impression originally made upon
me by that ridiculous crystal-gazing scene into which I had been
entrapped by Emmeline had returned, and do what I would I could not
dismiss it.
My cousin's wife was sincere, with all her vulgarity and inborn
snobbishness. And that being assumed, how did I stand with regard to
Rosetta Rosa? Was the thing a coincidence, or had I indeed crossed her
path pursuant to some strange decree of Fate--a decree which Emmeline
had divined or guessed or presaged? There was a certain weirdness
about Emmeline that was rather puzzling.
I had seen Rosa but twice, and her image, to use the old phrase, was
stamped on my heart. True! Yet the heart of any young man who had
talked with Rosa twice would in all probability have been similarly
affected. Rosa was not the ordinary pretty and clever girl. She was
such a creature as grows in this world not often in a century. She was
an angel out of Paradise--an angel who might pass across Europe and
leave behind her a trail of broken hearts to mark the transit. And if
angels could sing as she did, then no wonder that the heavenly choirs
were happy in nothing but song. (You are to remember that it was three
o'clock in the morning.) No, the fact that I was already half in love
with Rosa proved nothing.
On the other hand, might not the manner in which she and Alresca had
sought me out be held to prove something? Why should such exalted
personages think twice about a mere student of medicine who had had
the good fortune once to make himself useful at a critical juncture?
Surely, I could argue that here was the hand of Fate.
Rubbish! I was an ass to stand there at that unearthly hour, robbing
myself of sleep in order to pursue such trains of thought. Besides,
supposing that Rosa and myself were, in fact, drawn together by chance
or fate, or whatever you like to call it, had not disaster been
prophesied in that event? It would be best to leave the future alone.
My aim should be to cure Alresca, and then go soberly to Totnes and
join my brother in practice.