This
playfulness, however, was in a great measure artificial, and usually
vanished with the irritable Strephon, to whose annoyance it had been
exerted. The Genius Loci, the _tutela_ of Nightmare Abbey, the
spirit of black melancholy, began to set his seal on her pallescent
countenance. Scythrop perceived the change, found his tender
sympathies awakened, and did his utmost to comfort the afflicted
damsel, assuring her that his seeming inattention had only proceeded
from his being involved in a profound meditation on a very hopeful
scheme for the regeneration of human society. Marionetta called him
ungrateful, cruel, cold-hearted, and accompanied her reproaches with
many sobs and tears; poor Scythrop growing every moment more soft
and submissive--till, at length, he threw himself at her feet, and
declared that no competition of beauty, however dazzling, genius,
however transcendent, talents, however cultivated, or philosophy,
however enlightened, should ever make him renounce his divine
Marionetta.
'Competition!' thought Marionetta, and suddenly, with an air of the
most freezing indifference, she said, 'You are perfectly at liberty,
sir, to do as you please; I beg you will follow your own plans,
without any reference to me.
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