Now I will not say that after the scene on the balcony which I have recorded, there had not been a little thrill and tremor in Reine’s bosom, half pleasure, half fright, at the notion of going to the mountains in Everard’s close company; and that the idea her mother had suggested, that Herbert’s invalid habits must infallibly throw the other two much together, had not already passed through Reine’s mind with very considerable doubts as to the expediency of the proceeding; but as she was eighteen, and not a paragon of patience or any other perfection, the moment that Madame de Mirfleur took up this view of the question, Reine grew angry and felt insulted, and anxious to prove that she could walk through all the world by Everard’s side, or that of any other, without once stooping from her high maidenly indifference to all men, or committing herself to any foolish sentiment.
Everard, too, had his private cogitations on the same subject. He was old enough to know a little, though only a very little, about himself, and he did ask himself in a vague, indolent sort of way, whether he was ready to accept the possible consequences of being shut in a mountain solitude like that of Appenzell, not even with Reine, dear reader, for he knew his own weakness, but with any pretty and pleasant girl. Half whimsically, he admitted to himself, carefully and with natural delicacy endeavoring to put away Reine personally from the question, that it was more than likely that he would put himself at the feet, in much less than six weeks, of any girl in these exceptional circumstances. And he tried conscientiously to ask himself whether he was prepared to accept the consequences, to settle down with a wife in his waterside cottage, on his very moderate income, or to put himself into unwelcome and unaccustomed harness of work in order to make that income more. Everard quaked and trembled, and acknowledged within himself that it would be much better policy to go away, and even to run the risk of being slighted by Kate and Sophy, who would lead him into no such danger. He felt that this was the thing to do; and almost made up his mind to do it. But in the course of the afternoon, he went out to walk by Herbert’s wheeled chair to the fir-trees, and instantly, without more ado or any hesitation, plunged into all sorts of plans for what they were to do at Appenzell.