That Cass did not participate in the extravagant hopes of his comrades,
and that he rejected utterly their matrimonial speculations in his
behalf, need not be said. Outwardly, he kept his own counsel with
good-humored assent. But there was something fascinating in the
situation, and while he felt he had forever abandoned his romantic
dream, he was not displeased to know that it might have proved a
reality. Nor was it distasteful to him to think that Miss Porter would
hear of it and regret her late inability to appreciate his sentiment.
If he really were the object of some opulent maiden's passion, he would
show Miss Porter how he could sacrifice the most brilliant prospects
for her sake. Alone, on the top of the coach, he projected one of those
satisfying conversations in which imaginative people delight, but which
unfortunately never come quite up to rehearsal. "Dear Miss Porter,"
he would say, addressing the back of the driver, "if I could remain
faithful to a dream of my youth, however illusive and unreal, can you
believe that for the sake of lucre I could be false to the one real
passion that alone supplanted it." In the composition and delivery of
this eloquent statement an hour was happily forgotten: the only
drawback to its complete effect was that a misplace of epithets in rapid
repetition did not seem to make the slightest difference, and Cass found
himself saying "Dear Miss Porter, if I could be false to a dream of my
youth, etc.
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