12. Chapter xii. Approaching still nearer to the end.
(continued)
He replied, "Don't believe me upon my word; I have a better security,
a pledge for my constancy, which it is impossible to see and to
doubt." "What is that?" said Sophia, a little surprized. "I will show
you, my charming angel," cried Jones, seizing her hand and carrying
her to the glass. "There, behold it there in that lovely figure, in
that face, that shape, those eyes, that mind which shines through
these eyes; can the man who shall be in possession of these be
inconstant? Impossible! my Sophia; they would fix a Dorimant, a Lord
Rochester. You could not doubt it, if you could see yourself with any
eyes but your own." Sophia blushed and half smiled; but, forcing
again her brow into a frown--"If I am to judge," said she, "of the
future by the past, my image will no more remain in your heart when I
am out of your sight, than it will in this glass when I am out of the
room." "By heaven, by all that is sacred!" said Jones, "it never was
out of my heart. The delicacy of your sex cannot conceive the
grossness of ours, nor how little one sort of amour has to do with
the heart." "I will never marry a man," replied Sophia, very gravely,
"who shall not learn refinement enough to be as incapable as I am
myself of making such a distinction." "I will learn it," said Jones.
"I have learnt it already. The first moment of hope that my Sophia
might be my wife taught it me at once; and all the rest of her sex
from that moment became as little the objects of desire to my sense
as of passion to my heart." "Well," says Sophia, "the proof of this
must be from time. Your situation, Mr Jones, is now altered, and I
assure you I have great satisfaction in the alteration. You will now
want no opportunity of being near me, and convincing me that your
mind is altered too." "O! my angel," cries Jones, "how shall I thank
thy goodness! And are you so good to own that you have a satisfaction
in my prosperity?----Believe me, believe me, madam, it is you alone
have given a relish to that prosperity, since I owe to it the dear
hope----O! my Sophia, let it not be a distant one.--I will be all
obedience to your commands. I will not dare to press anything further
than you permit me. Yet let me intreat you to appoint a short trial.
O! tell me when I may expect you will be convinced of what is most
solemnly true." "When I have gone voluntarily thus far, Mr Jones,"
said she, "I expect not to be pressed. Nay, I will not."--"O! don't
look unkindly thus, my Sophia," cries he. "I do not, I dare not press
you.--Yet permit me at least once more to beg you would fix the
period. O! consider the impatience of love."--"A twelvemonth,
perhaps," said she. "O! my Sophia," cries he, "you have named an
eternity."--"Perhaps it may be something sooner," says she; "I will
not be teazed. If your passion for me be what I would have it, I
think you may now be easy."--"Easy! Sophia, call not such an exulting
happiness as mine by so cold a name.----O! transporting thought! am I
not assured that the blessed day will come, when I shall call you
mine; when fears shall be no more; when I shall have that dear, that
vast, that exquisite, ecstatic delight of making my Sophia
happy?"--"Indeed, sir," said she, "that day is in your own
power."--"O! my dear, my divine angel," cried he, "these words have
made me mad with joy.----But I must, I will thank those dear lips
which have so sweetly pronounced my bliss." He then caught her in his
arms, and kissed her with an ardour he had never ventured before.